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.