Exhibition of mail art project on touch by Marijn Bax and Richtje Reinsma
Van Zijll Langhout / Contemporary Art gallery in Amsterdam.
October 17 oktober till November 4
Gallery VZL Contemporary Art
Opening hours: Wed — Sat from 10:00 a.m. till 5 p.m.
Brouwersgracht 161, Amsterdam
www.vzlart.nl
exposities@vanzijlllanghout.nl
OP DE TAST
‘Touch-subscription' OP DE TAST was a mail art project by Marijn Bax and Richtje Reinsma, created in corona time in reaction to the one and a half metre measure. For the past nine months (Jan 2021 to Sept 2021) Marijn and Richtje have been making an art work together every month in edition, with image and text on emotionally selected paper (A3 format), in which they explored experiences of the loss of the everyday touch.
Skin hunger; the mental preparation for the possible return or final farewell of various rituals of greeting; an ode
to a part of the body that, thanks to SARS-CoV-2, was given a new role in the socially distanced traffic. Sometimes Richtje and Marijn made use of sources (e.g. photo archives, (song) texts, the public debate as reflected in the media, a self-made OP DE TAST touch survey). The lifting of the one and a half metre measure on
25 September ushered in the end of the ‘touch subscription'.
OP DE TAST has unfolded as an artistic investigation into the
present state of touch; sometimes looking back, then feeling forward. And especially in the midst of the diffuse complexity of the present, that incessantly keeps slipping away from our fingers.
Image: one side of OP DE TAST #6, inspired by the OP DE TAST survey.