nieuw realisme en pop art uit de jaren 60 - Borzo

Warning to Lichtenstein, Permanent wave 1968
gouache on board with corrugated plastic, signed,
titled and dated on the reverse, 100 x 75 cm
Woody van Amen is the fi rst Dutch artist to leave for
the New World, along with his wife Cocky, in 1961. “At
that time many Dutch artists went to Paris, but we had
already done that. We went by ship and arrived in the
middle of the consumer society. It took a while to take
it all in. A marvellous world. All those neon advertising
signs. We didn’t have those in Rotterdam. If you are
receptive to all that movement, all that dynamism in
New York, it stays with you forever”, according to Van
Amen.
In New York Van Amen is plunged into an environment
of black jazz music, unlimited consumption culture,
exciting exhibitions, junk art and neon light. He visits the
artists’ cafés Dillen’s Bar and Cedar Bar in the Village
and goes with the New York artists he meets there to the
coastal town of East Hampton where he meets Willem de
Kooning. When he returns to Rotterdam Woody no longer
paints in his former abstract-expressionist style – the art
he produces is chiefl y inspired by Pop Art. As he says
himself: “If I hadn’t gone to America, I would probably
still just be painting”. In 1964 he moves to a studio building
on the Lambertusstraat in Rotterdam. This quickly
becomes a repository for artists taking on the new times.
“We talked about what and who we admired. I discovered
new materials, like plastics and started to use bright
fl uorescent colours.
Looking back maybe you could say that in Rotterdam
Pop Art was a binding factor, but had more effect on the
attitude of the artists rather than as a style in the art”.
modern & contemporary art
Blue, red and green 1968, assemblage, 62.5 x 41 x 12 cm
In 1963 Van Amen paints well-known Dutch brands
such as Wrigley chewing gum and RVS Verzekeringen
as Pop elements in his otherwise abstract-expressionist
paintings. He also makes his fi rst assemblage in 1963.
His confrontational, but also ironically intended,
Elektrische Stoel (Electric Chair) causes a stir. “I had
made the chair shortly after returning from America in
response to the death sentence given to a 14 year-old
black boy. It was my not very subtle way of expressing
my protest about this”. In 1964 Van Amen is invited for
the Nieuwe Realisten (New Realists) exhibition in the
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. In general the exhibition
is viewed as extreme, bizarre and provocative.
Woody’s contribution is a piece criticising the
advancing terror of television.
In the years that follow Van Amen experiments freely.
With new industrial materials such as plastics, polyester,
perspex and neon he makes amazing assemblages
and objects that seamlessly fi t the times. From Van
Amen’s point of view art is everywhere, you just have
to see it. ‘Art happens to you’ is a favourite credo.
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