art gallery
An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...
for the international
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
in
Finsterwolde
Finsterwolde () is a village in the Dutch province of Groningen, about 7 km northeast of the city of Winschoten. Finsterwolde was a separate municipality until 1990, when it was merged with Beerta into Reiderland. In 2010 Reiderland merged i ...
De Telegraaf
''De Telegraaf'' (; en, The Telegraph) is the largest Dutch daily morning newspaper. Haro Kraak,Gaat Paul Jansen de crisis bij De Telegraaf oplossen?, '' de Volkskrant'', 2015. Retrieved 1 August 2015. Paul Jansen has been the editor-in-chief s ...
,'' 4 april 2007. (
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
)
History
The art gallery had started by
Albert Waalkens Albert Waalkens (Finsterwolde, 8 June 1920 - there, 1 April 2007) was a Dutch farmer, gallery owner of Galery Waalkens and avant-garde art promoter.stable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...
of his farm in 1962, where artists and their families mainly from the Randstad could also shelter. The gallery offered a podium for young experimental
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
s. The gallery came into prominence with some
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
exhibition
An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibition ...
s along the public road. It started in ten statues in 1963 around the village of Finsterwolde, and evolved the 1967 exhibition along the public road with 200 sculptures by 63 artists. This exhibition stretched from the city of
Groningen
Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
to the east of the province.
In 1984 Gunnar Daan come into prominence with an exhibition at the gallery.Hans Oldewarris, Peter de Winter, ''20 Years 010.'' 2003. p. 219. In 2008 he made the design for the new building of the gallery.
In 1988 the art curator Poul ter Hofstede in cooperation with the Groninger Museum published a retrospective on the gallery with a chronological listing of the exhibitions. In the year 2000 Waalkens was awarded the
Benno Premsela Prize The Benno Premsela Prize is a former Dutch design prize, awarded every two years from 2000 to 2012 by the Mondriaan Fonds to a person who has played a stimulating role in the field of visual arts, design or architecture. The prize is named after de ...
by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts for his stimulating attitude towards artists.
In the new millennium the son and former PvdA member of parliament Harm Evert Waalkens continued the gallery, and by 2014 his daughter Merel and her husband continued the tradition. In 2017 the Stichting Beeldlijn completed a new documentary about the gallery and visual art in Groningen, entitled ''Boer tussen kunst en koren.''
Exhibitions, a selection
* 1963. ''Beelden in Finsterwolde'', open air exhibition.
* 1978. ''Movement in Dark'' by
Nan Hoover
Nan Hoover (12 May 1931 – 9 June 2008) was a Dutch/American-expatriate artist who is known for her pioneering work in video art, photography and performance art. She spent almost four decades living and working in the Netherlands.Gunnar Daan.
* 1987. Works by Ruud Kuijer
* 1994. ''It's in the Air'' by Felix Hess. Ons erfdeel '' Volume 49. 2006. p. 668.
Photo Gallery
Some examples of the type of works of the artists, that had presented their works at the Galery Waalkens.
File:Nan Hoover “The Ls” Object.jpg, ''The Ls'' by
Nan Hoover
Nan Hoover (12 May 1931 – 9 June 2008) was a Dutch/American-expatriate artist who is known for her pioneering work in video art, photography and performance art. She spent almost four decades living and working in the Netherlands.Hardenberg Railway Station
image:Waterwerk_II_Bearable_Lightness_(2003).jpg, ''Water Work II Bearable Lightness'' by Ruud Kuijer realization in 2003
File:Gunnar daan stadsmarkering gn.JPG, ''City marking'' by Gunnar Daan, realization in 2006
Publications
* Poul ter Hofstede, ''Conformeren aan de Avant-Garde, 25 jaar Galerie Waalkens.'' Groningen: Groninger Museum, 1988.
* Susan Rijke & Lidy Visser, Archief Galerie Waalkens ', Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis 2014.