GET THE STORY ReutenGalerie Amsterdam Holland

at ReutenGalerie 25 October - 7 December Fokke Simonszstraat 49
Amsterdam

Press Release

Reuten Gallery presents GET THE STORY compiled by Serge Onnen en Geert
Dekkers

GET THE STORY, in Reuten Gallery, shows drawings, websites, animations
and interactive media by artists who have a story to tell.

The working title was "…and what about the story…"; the choice for
the title "GET THE STORY" was made because the works' subject matter is
taken from the daily routine (the same story each and every day) and
the works seem to draw from factual reality but at the same time
reflect on that reality.

Because the subject matter is so close to day to day reality, the
drawings suggest that it is possible for us to "get the story". But
that's not so easy as it seems. We can "read". But do we "get it"?

Every evening, MARCEL VAN EEDEN, adds yet another frame to his oeuvre
of drawings on the days before he was born: what happened before or
after that frame is up to us.

In her interactive cd-rom "Indifference To The Truth" MATHILDE TER
HEIJNE tries to piece together the unfathomable suffering of the world
as it is presented to us by the media. In doing so, she has designed
something akin to a building, perhaps a meta-building - we the viewers
must try to find our way through this building and build our own story.

HOLGER BUNK draws a city filled with people in confined spaces, doing
ordinary things. But there is no conflict. This is not a drama. We can
make up our own story. If we so wish. If the drawings were to make up
the storyboard of a movie, it would have ended ages ago.

But something is happening right now in every one of PAUL DE REUS's
drawings. And what's more, cause and effect are presented in an all in
one package. So where are we? What where we doing at that precise
moment?

GEERT DEKKERS shows us the just punch-line of a story yet to be told.
So, what's the story? We're intrigued, we want to understand, but
can't.

In SERGE ONNEN's drawings and animations cause and effect aren't
apparent. Where he uses language, it is used to give us some sense of
direction, but no more than that. The story is told by the images. But
as in most of these artists, there is no solution here. You'll not be
told anything about the real world.

MARC SMEETS seems to be the most down-to-earth of the lot, especially
because he drew in the realistic style of Herge, the creater of the
TinTin comics. But if you look more closely, Smeets's view of his home
town, the Dutch city of Venlo, is much more complicated. A story could
begin or end just about anywhere. We may expect place and time, but
we're not getting it. We're just travelling through.

PETER PONTIAC would be the most classical of the artist's shown here.
An accomplished illustrator and comic book writer, his stories are told
in every detail. Everything must always be present in the Xmas stable, =

not only the infant Jezus, but also the shepherds and the ox.

On his website HANNES KATER is very literally telling us a story -
albeit in his own hieroglyphic language. Using this language he tells
stories given to him by the visitors to his website. A lexicon is
supplied so we the viewers may unravel the drawn stories, and translate
them back to his or her own language. So, the stories are there to be
"gotten", we must "get" them ourselves.

INTERNET

Marcel van Eeden, Geert Dekkers and Hannes Kater make extensive use of
their websites. Van Eeden and Dekkers keep a daily WEBLOG of their
drawings, whereas Hannes Kater has developed a DRAWING GENERATOR that
vistors may use to post their own stories, after which they receive a -
free - drawing.

Computers are present during the show to enable visitors to access the
artists' websites.

URLS:

Marcel van Eeden: http://marcelvaneeden.nl/tekenlog.html
Geert Dekkers: http://nznl.com
Hannes Kater: http://hanneskater.com
additional URL: Tanja Smit: http://www.tanjasmit.com

PUBLICATIONS

Marc Smeets died in 1999. This december, the publishing house OOG &
BLIK will present 4 editions of the periodical VENLO INTERNATIONAAL,
that Marc did in conjunction with his brother LUC.

Serge Onnen has done a number of projects placing drawing in a larger
context than the art world alone. His most ambitious project is a
series of publications entitled "VOLUME", the first edition of which
was published as part of the New York magazine "ZINGMAGAZINE" (which is
now sold out). The second edition, "99% Drawings, 1% Text" will be
published in March of 2004. The drawings, based on thousands of drawn
sources, will focus on a universal theme.