The idea behind the farm Amara Hoeve Bergen during “10 days of Art”

Jeroen van Paassen curated last year an exhibit in Peter and Paulus Church in Bergen, Holland during kunst10daagse (10 Days of Art). Then he met the owner of Amara Farm and the idea was born of converting his farm into an alternative space with art, music and poetry in cooperation with Fred Michiels from Belgium, the man behind Bozar de l’Abattoir, each one bringing their own artists. The difference? van Paassen says: “I have a preference for colorful and tight work with clear lines, say pop art. For Michiels it’s about expression, you can say: “Pop Art meets cobra ”’. Van Paassen says they never work with a theme because it’s more important to have an element of surprise. They travel every two years in Europe so they had an exhbition in a wine castle in France, this year they will travel to Belgium (Bozar de l’Abattoir) and next year they will go to Copenhagen and Southern Germany.

Although I show my work in international galleries and ocasionally in museums I value and enjoy working with alternative spaces. It was in the 1970s in America and in 1980’s in Europe when an explosion of alternative galleries, art spaces, and collectives took place. Populating store fronts, lofts, and warehouses, these spaces confronted the supposed neutrality of the commercial gallery’s “white cube” by promoting work that was politically engaged, experimental, and more concerned with artistic discourse than commercial viability. For more photos of our exhibit at Amara Hoeve Farm please visit my Facebook page.