Exhibitions

23 Feb - 30 Mar 2019

TORCH gallery

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We are pleased to announce ‘Day In, Day Out’, the new solo exhibition of Teun Hocks at TORCH gallery. Opening on Saturday 23 February, it consists of ten new photo-paintings that Hocks made during the last two years. He is known for his humorous self-portraits, where he uses oil paint to hand colour the black and white photos he made with an analogue camera. Since the 1980s his working method has been consistent, and this new series proves that Hocks fantasy is as lively as ever. An overview of his work since the early beginnings to his latest work can be seen at the exhibition ‘Early to Late’ at Stedelijk Museum Breda, coinciding with the show at our gallery. Together with the museum, we published a new catalogue, available in the gallery and the museum.

19 Jan - 16 Feb 2019

TORCH gallery

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Works by Nobuyoshi Araki, Henry Boyd, Edward Burtynksy, Slim Aarons, Larry Clark, Anton Corbijn, Patrick Demarchelier, Wouter Deruytter, Bob Grunen, Horst P. Horst, Paul Huf, Seb Janiak, Paula Klaw, Alberto Korda, Justine Kurland, David LaChapelle, Loretta Lux, Emiel van Moerkerken, Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Helmut Newton, Herb Ritts, Martin Roemers, Melvin Sokolsky, Starns Brothers, Yuk-Lin Tang, among others.

We are pleased to invite you to our photography exhibition ‘Through the Looking Glass’, showing a fine selection of photos, taken from the 1940s until now. Opening on the 19th of January, the exhibition gives an overview of photography throughout the years. TORCH gallery has a long history with photography, being one of the first to present this medium as an art form in the Netherlands, back in the eighties. The photographed world is a strange place, like a looking glass world. While it is resembling our own world, things seem different than when they appear. To this day, this mystery remains the source of the mediums greatest power.

In the beginning in the 1830s, photography was too new to be defined by definitions what it could or couldn’t be. It was anything that photographers wanted it to be, from high art to low commerce. Slowly definitions and distinctions grew up to confine photography in controlled channels. It was only in the 21^th century when this hard-lined division of photography categories, like fashion, advertising, art or documentary, collapsed. Again, photography can be anything photographers want it to be.

Photography was only accepted as art since the eighties, the same time TORCH gallery was established. Before this, papers like The New York Times would not list photography exhibitions because they thought it is not an art. Things changed and suddenly it was like a garden blooming with things all over. It started when teenagers, who grew up looking at picture magazines, grew older and graduated from buying reproductions of their favourite photographs to collecting the real thing. Photos that had been taken decades ago, were seen in a different light.

In this exhibition, we show the many different types that exist in the world of photography, from the fashion photo by Melvin Sokolsky to the documentary photo by Alberto Corda, the portraiture by Anton Corbijn, the landscapes by Edward Burtynsky, the street photography by Wouter Deruytter and everything in between.

10 Nov - 05 Jan 2019

TORCH gallery

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10 November, 2018 – 5 January, 2019
Opening 10 November, 5 – 7 pm

Extra event: 24 November 5 pm, modern dance performance during Amsterdam Art Weekend

We proudly present 'Being Places', a new solo exhibition by the Dutch photographer Ellen Kooi (1962) at TORCH gallery. Opening on the 10th of November, the show consists of her most recent work, including never seen before works that have been specially created for this exhibition. Once again, Kooi explores the compelling relationship between man and landscape. She brings to light the visual contrasts and interfaces of us ‘being places’, by means of panoramic photographs. 

08 Sep - 23 Oct 2018

TORCH gallery

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Blue has always been the most beguiling colour for artists. As a pigment, blue is extremely rare in nature, despite being all around us. We will never be able to touch the blueness of the sea or the sky. For this reason, blue has always been the colour of an entirely new world beyond our own.

For a long time in history, there was little blue to be seen. The Ancient Greeks did not even have a name for the colour. The seas were often pictured green on maps. So when at the end of the Middle Ages a bright blue stone became available in Europe, it changed art in dramatic ways. The stone was named 'lapis-lazuli', and was made into the paint 'ultramarine', which translates to 'from across the seas', since it had originated Afghanistan. 
Prior to this, blue was almost never used in art. Soon the Church sought to control the use of the colour, so that it was only used for the most divine parts of paintings. For a while, it had became even more expensive and rare than gold.

12 Jul - 21 Jul 2018

TORCH gallery

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ITALO DISCO DOGMA
MC de Waal
12.07 – 21.07.2018
Opening: Thursday 12 July 18.00 - 22.00 (with 12”-presentation ‘RAINING IN MY HEART’ and performance by Maxime Duvall & Band)
Exhibition with cover art by:
Arno Coenen, Lukas Göbel, Andy Tan, Sandor Klijn, Steven Brunsman,  Maarten Nauw and Natasa Heydra. Curator: MC de Waal

Italo disco, seen by many as the ultimate dance music, is going through an immense revival in the current DJ scene and hence in the music, fashion, art and design scenes. Artist MC de Waal, an italo-fanatic from the start, responds to this new wave of interest as curator of a group exhibition about the dogma of the italo disco. At the opening, the curator will give a performance as Maxime Duvall in which the 12” inch-maxi-single 'Raining In My Heart' will be presented.

02 Jun - 30 Jun 2018

TORCH gallery

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My Name Is Sander Dekker

Sander Dekker

02-30.06.2018

On Saturday the 2nd of June opens My Name Is Sander Dekker, a solo exhibition by

photographer Sander Dekker at TORCH gallery in Amsterdam. One part of the exhibition

shows photo's that belong to the ongoing series 'The Project', while the other part is an

installation called 'TenFifteen', consisting of thousands of tiny photographs. The style of

Dekker is easily recognizable, due to his working method that could be described as

spontaneous and playful. When shooting, Dekker does not know how the photos will turn

out in the end, as he always tries to capture the unexpected.

14 Apr - 27 May 2018

TORCH gallery

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On Saturday the 14th of April opens The Worst Is Yet To Come: relics from a recent past (clock doesn't say 3:46 pm), a solo exhibition of TINKEBELL. at TORCH gallery in Amsterdam. Over the past twenty years TINKEBELL. has made it her personal mission to save the world. To achieve this goal, she initiated diverse and frequently controversial projects, all over the world, not often left undiscussed by the media. The physical remainings of these activities she turned into art objects, called 'relics'. They go from old personal documents, photos, the packages of painkillers she took after her sterilisation, the human bones she brought back from the ground of the collapsed textile factories 'Rana Plaza' (Bangladesh) till clocks (that doesn't say 3:46 pm) and the plants she picked in the affected zones of Fukushima and much more. In this exhibition, a selection of these relics is shown to the public.

03 Mar - 07 Apr 2018

TORCH gallery

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Unreal

Thijs Zweers

10.03.2018 – 21.04.2018

Extra event on 9th of March 6 pm at the Oedipus Taproom: Launch of the beer

‘Unreal’, a collaboration between Oedipus Brewing and Thijs Zweers.

On Saturday the 10th of March opens Unreal, the second solo exhibition of Thijs Zweers at

TORCH gallery in Amsterdam. Once again Zweers presents black powerful drawings made with

Siberian chalk and charcoal, in which he examines the boundaries between our world and the

virtual one. In a time when people spend more and more time in front of screens, looking towards

realistic representations of what is actually around us, the certainty of what is real and what is not,

disappears slowly.

27 Jan - 03 Mar 2018

TORCH gallery

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Acid Flowers
Louise te Poele

27.01 - 03.03.2018

Acid Flowers, the second solo-exhibition of Dutch photographer Louise te Poele for TORCH gallery in Amsterdam, will open on Saturday the 27^th of January between 5-7pm. With this exhibition, Louise will introduce a new body of work by means of a spectacular gallery-filling installation. Where her previous work was made in the spirit of the 17^th century Dutch masters of the still life, these new pieces are futuristic flower arrangements bathing in bright neon lights. She orchestrates wondrous compositions of found objects that playfully disrupt suggestions of movement, scale and vanitas. After the opening the exhibition will be on view until Saturday the third of March.

25 Nov - 06 Jan 2018

TORCH gallery

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The browsing chamber

A Salon on Steroids

Steven Cox

Samuel Francois

Ina Gerken

Gijs van Lith (curator)

Pierre Obando

Super salon shuffle - yoga session: Friday the 24th of November, 2-3 pm

Opening during the Amsterdam Art Weekend: Saturday the 25th of November, 5-8pm

On Saturday the 25th of November a group exhibition curated by Gijs van Lith, entitled The Browsing Chamber, will open at TORCH gallery in Amsterdam. Five young international talents will present works in a salon-style exhibition that will cover the entire surface of the backspace of the gallery, from floor to ceiling. All participating artists make process-based abstract works which relate to painting in a systematic manner. These young artists are inspired by their largely digital surroundings and the way images are indexed on the internet. Before the festive opening, the salon will be the location for an intense yoga session, the marks of which will become part of the final presentation. This installation can be viewed as a three-dimensional interpretation of a google image search. The neatly organized grids of images provided by search engines have become a point of first contact for people interested in the work of an artist.Entering the backspace should speak of human scale and our interaction with artworks grounded in their material.

21 Oct - 18 Nov 2017

TORCH

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Anya Janssen 

People say I'm different

Een ode aan het ongekende

21.10.2017 – 18.11.2017

Opening met performance “LOK KEDE KOM A” van Christine Ayo: zaterdag 21 Oktober tussen 17:00 en 19:00

Op zaterdag 21 oktober opent People say I'm different, een solo-tentoonstelling met nieuwe werken van Anya Janssen bij galerie TORCH in Amsterdam. De werken tonen de ontmoeting tussen Anya Janssen en Christine Ayo, een jonge kunstenares uit Oeganda. Ayo is zich bewust van haar positie als de 'ander' in de ogen van velen. Ze gebruikt dit spel met perceptie als machtsmiddel, haar uitstraling is haar eigen bezit. Janssen is gefascineerd door de visie van Ayo op de wereld en het contrast met haar eigen positie als mens, kunstenaar en Europeaan. Ze zoekt naar een gelijkwaardig contact en beseft

zich gaandeweg: als je een verbintenis met iemand aangaat, wordt hij of zij onderdeel van je wezen. Je bent minder autonoom dan je denkt. Er ontstaat een poreuze identiteit waar het statische 'ik' plaats maakt voor een fluïde ‚wij'.

09 Sep - 14 Oct 2017

TORCH gallery / Oedipus Taproom

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On Saturday the 9th of September TORCH will start a new season of art with Paintings, an exhibition of new work by Dutch painter Philip Akkerman. For Paintings, Akkerman has collaborated with the well known graphic designer Dennis Koot, who has designed a series of 'Frames' based on Philip's most recent works. These frames deconstruct and unhinge Philips paintings on panel until they become wild, vector-based installation pieces. The Friday before the opening of Paintings will mark the launch of Château Akkerman, a special bock-style beer brewed by the Amsterdam based brewery Oedipus in collaboration with the artist. The festive launch will take place from 5pm on the 8th of September at the Oedipus Taproom and will include a tasting, an artist talk andmusic by DJ Akkerman.

12 Aug - 02 Sep 2017

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Grayscale, a group exhibition featuring three contemporary photographers working in black and white, will open on Saturday the 12th of August between 5 and 7 pm at TORCH gallery in Amsterdam. Although the methods of arriving at an image differ wildly for each of the three participating artists, they all blend classic sensibilities with a contemporary temperament. They take idyllic themes like still lives, pastoral family bliss and the wondrous nature of the Indonesian islands and give them an intelligent twist using photographic techniques, unexpected vantage points and their personal engagement with the subject matter.

08 Jul - 05 Aug 2017

TORCH

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In its 33 years of existence, TORCH has collected and helped produce a very broad variety of editions and multiples. This includes works by renowned, emerging and obscure artists from the Netherlands and abroad. This summer the gallery will make a selection from the archives, ranging from early works by Jan Worst and A.R. Penck to very recent works by Thijs Zweers and TINKEBELL.

Opening Saturday the 8th of July from 5-7pm

27 May - 01 Jul 2017

TORCH gallery

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On Saturday the 27th of May between 5-7 pm The Garden of Hell on Earth, a solo-exhibition by Canadian artist Eldon Garnet will open at TORCH gallery in Amsterdam. With a series of large-scale photographs depicting a post-apocalyptic narrative of struggle and lasting hope of biblical proportions he sets the tone for the final chapters of his long and fruitful career as an artist. These labor-intensive and highly ambitious pieces form a new lexicon for recovery as a fundamental human trait. After all the processes deemed as progress come to a grinding halt, when the modern age has had its grand finale and there is nothing left but soot and stone, then humans will inevitably start rebuilding their world.

08 Apr - 20 May 2017

TORCH gallery

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TORCH gallery Amsterdam is pleased to announce it's fifth solo exhibition by Dutch photographer Popel Coumou. New Work will open on Saturday the 8th of April between 5- 7pm. A new publication will be printed for the occasion and Popel will present a limited edition box set including a small work and all previous publications in the series. In her recent work she has made a surprising shift in her artistic framework towards more instable forms and less defined vistas. It is a reorientation on the way photographs can suggest time, space and light and simultaneously a reinterpretation of the visual patterns that have occurred throughout her work. Besides these photographs she will also present lightboxes and three dimensional collages. 

18 Feb - 25 Mar 2017

TORCH Gallery

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On Saturday the 18th of February Rapid Repulsion, Line Gulsett's second solo-exhibition at TORCH gallery will open between 5-7 pm. After this festive event the exhibition will run through Saturday the 25th of March. TORCH is open from Thursday to Saturday from 12-6pm, and by appointment. For further information and images please contact the gallery via the contact information listed below, or visit the website of the artist: linegulsett.com. The exhibition will feature a selection of recent large and small scale canvasses in addition to drawings with oil pastel on black paper.

07 Jan - 11 Feb 2017

TORCH gallery

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TORCH will start the new year with Reverse Abstraction, a solo-exhibition of new work by American artist Ashley Zelinskie. The exhibition will open on Saturday the 7th of January and will be on view through the 11th of February.

29 Oct - 31 Dec 2016

TORCH gallery

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TORCH is thrilled to announce Solo Spaces , a solo-exhibition of new work by renowned American artist Terry Rodgers. On Saturday the 29th of October, between 5-7pm, the artist will be present at the gallery to open the exhibition. After this festive evening Solo Spaces will be open to the public until Saturday the 31st of December. A new, limited edition publication will be made available during the opening. During the upcoming Amsterdam Art Weekend (24-27 November) Terry will take part in a Q&A hosted from his studio in Columbus, Ohio via live video chat. This special event will be moderated in Amsterdam by media critic, writer and lecturer Catherine Somzé and will take place on Saturday the 26th of November from 4-5 pm.  TORCH is open from Thursday until Saturday from 12-6 pm and by appointment.

03 Sep - 22 Oct 2016

TORCH

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On Saturday the 3rd of September TORCH gallery Amsterdam will open the new gallery season with Welcome to the Thunderdome. It will be the first solo exhibition by the young Dutch painter Gijs van Lith (1984) at the gallery. As this day marks the start of a new season of exhibitions after the summer many galleries in the Jordaan gallery district will open simultaneously. Afterwards the exhibition will be open to the public until Saturday the 22nd of October.