On February 10 from 12.00 - 18.00 we open the first solo exhibition by Erik Mattijssen in the gallery: Paper Moon. We hope to see you then, the exhibition runs until March 3.

Topsy Turvy II, 2023

You will encounter few people in Erik Mattijssen's (NL, 1957) oeuvre, which has now spanned forty years. Once there was one floating in a kitchen, hanging from strings, and there was a man dressed up on a horse. But as a derivative, portrayed as a doll, they are there, and in this exhibition they play a leading role. The gallery shows a group of works that originated in the Munich City Museum, where an entire floor is dedicated to the history of the Bavarian Puppet Theater. A Valhalla for the artist. Hundreds of puppet theater figures, marionettes, heads, sets and entire theaters can be seen there.

Mattijssen uses these theater figures to depict moods, differently and more directly than in his works of objects, but with the same sense of melancholy. The exhibition emphasizes theatrical spaces where the cardboard, flat puppets seem to neatly wait their turn.

Like most topics that Mattijssen touches upon, nothing is what it seems in this series. Foods are not there to sink your teeth into, flowers are clearly not real, they rather look like props like you find in a theater performance. Mattijssen collects his images. Sometimes this leads to an extensive still life, sometimes to an extensive interior. These are scenes that stimulate the imagination and are real if you believe in them.

Say, it's only a paper moon
Sailing over a cardboard sea
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me 

Arlen, Harburg en Rose, It’s only a paper moon

Articles about the exhibition
NRC, De cultuurweek van Hanneke Groenteman
Parool, Beeldrijm