Artists:		Rob Møhlmann
Techniques:		oil paint
Date of exhibition:		February 20 - April 17, 2005

Rob Møhlmann

Exhibition The painter Rob Møhlmann is well-known for his modern and razor sharp still life paintings - even beyond the borders of his native country. Colleague and publicist Diederik Kraaijpoel wrote in 2003: "His work is painted with a scalpel. We are reminded to The Flemish Primitives and the Florentine Masters of the Quattrocento. The object is taken apart and then reconstructed. This is not merely watching, this is also wanting to know what the world is made of. Hence the effect is of a piercing intensity. This year, M&olash;hlmann again opens the season with his annual solo exhibition, which includes some 30 oil paintings. As usual, everyday reality is his favourite subject, portrayed, as he is a true realist, on a scale of one to one. His subjects vary strongly. There is a triptych, showing a humble piece of cake that seems to be eaten by a housefly. There is a dead chicken or a vase with dead tulips, still with a telling card saying: success! Humour is quite a rare thing in art, but it is found in the work of this painter as an undertone that puts things into perspective, sometimes bordering on the realm of the melancholy. Møhlmann is particularly a painter of "things that pass". Book * As a writer about art and its surroundings, Møhlmann is definitely an outsider. He is a keen observer, but he is so as an artist, never as an art historian. After having written many small articles about his colleagues, some autobiographic material, and a number of columns, he now turns up with everything that "has been lying waiting in his drawer", and this material simply defies description. The title of the book is "'Red blush of shame and other notes in black and white" and it consists of a number of colourful brainwaves, ideas, one-liners, short stories and poetical notes. As a grant finale there is a series of contemplations on the parallels between some specific newsphotos from the papers and their equivalents in the arts. All texts, whether they're long or short, are in a sense "eye-openers", if only because they disclose a particular world view, as seen through the eyes of an artist. These texts make it all too clear that this artist prefers realism to the abstract, but at the same time they reveal his almost desperate wrestle with reality, which he eventually summarizes as being "absolute abstract". And whether or not you agree with his findings, before you know it you will be carried away by his inimitable way of arguing. And so the ostensibly bizarre similarity between the "Birth of a star" as photographed by the Hubble-telescope and "the Colossus" on a famous mezzotint by Francesco Goya suddenly becomes crystal clear.

Rob Møhlmann, Fles met reigersneb | zoom | Rob Møhlmann, Met de messen op tafel | zoom | Rob Møhlmann, Succes | zoom | Rob Møhlmann, Vleermuis | zoom |

Goya, The Colossus (partial)

Birth of a star (Hubble telescope)

* The original title of the book is 'Schaamrood en andere optekeningen in zwart-wit' and, alas, it is only available in Dutch. But as soon as Møhlmann really becomes a world-famous painter, an English version will be published. And even a German. Or a French, a Spanish, a Greek, a Norwegian, Japanese, Chinese or even Tibetan.

Group exhibition

Parallel to the exhibition of Rob Møhlmann, the museum organizes a group exhibition with new work of: Dina Belga, Janhendrik Dolsma, Hans Feyerabend, Flip Gaasendam, Aad Hofman, Herman van Hoogdalem, René Jansen, Monica Jonkergouw, Pieter Knorr, Harry Meerveld, Ben Rikken, Jan Jaap Stigter, Herman Tulp, Gerrit de Vries, and statues of: Romee Kanis, Annette Koek, Jaap Deelder, Marjolein Vernooy

Aad Hofman	Dina Belga	Jaap Deelder	Jan-Jaap Stigter
	Herman van Hoogdalem
Hans Feyerabend	Harry Meerveld	Herman Tulp	Pieter Knorr
Annette Koek	Ben Rikken	Flip Gaasendam	Gerrit de Vries
Janhendrik Dolsma
Romee Kanis	Monica Jonkergouw	Marjolein Vernooy	René Jansen