up to and including 13 October 2013
Fons Haagmans
In the summer of 2013 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen showed three paintings by Fons Haagmans (1948). In 2012 Depot VBVR, the collection of the founders of Amsterdam-based gallery Art & Project (1968-2001), donated several works by Haagmans to the museum including Branche Folie (1997), which were on display. Haagmans uses stencils to apply his motifs to the canvas. Volume is created not by brush strokes but by shifting the stencil. Haagmans thus explores the boundaries of the medium in a highly personal way.
In the 1980s, during which two of the three works were created, Haagmans had a minimalist yet decorative approach. Haagmans works incorporate largely forgotten abstracted symbols. The numbers in his so-called number paintings, two of which are on view, refer to numerology of the Jewish Kabbalah.
Origins
The museum previously owned twenty-five works by Fons Haagmans, including three paintings and a decorative plate. This collection has now been augmented by ten paintings and ten prints from the collection of Depot VBVR. This collection was assembled by Geert van Beijeren (1933-2005) and Adriaan van Ravesteijn (1938), founders of the gallery Art & Project, and comprises more than 2000 works by internationally renowned artists of the second half of the twentieth century. In 2001 a large part of their archive was transferred to the Netherlands Institute for Art History. Art & Project was an important platform for contemporary art and in particular for Conceptual Art in the Netherlands and abroad.
About the artist
Fons Haagmans was born in Schinnen (NL) and lives and works in Maastricht. In his long and successful career he has had numerous solo exhibitions, at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht and in galleries in the Netherlands and abroad. In the AVRO programme Museumgasten from 2007 Fons Haagmans talks about his exhibition at the Bonnefantenmuseum (from 13.05 minutes).
