Exhibition Duration: September 3 – 23, 2019
NEW DATE: January 22 – February 9, 2020
Place: Bernaerts Gallery
Organised by the Bernaerts Gallery in Antwerp, the NMSWP exhibition continues its journey, after one successful opening at the same art space (September 3rd – September 23rd) and the first opening at the Benaki Museum, in Athens (April 3rd – May 19th 2019, extended until May 26th).
Visitors of the exhibition are able to see the artistic approach of Stefanos Rokos to the album “No More Shall We Part” by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, which makes up a testimony of his personal proposal for a dialectic to be developed between two artistic forms- those of painting and song writing, which have all along constituted the very core of artistic expression and creativity.
EXHIBITION OPENING: September 3, 2019
EXHIBITION VIEWS
THE CONCERT
Stefanos Rokos’s attempt to visually approach the L.P. NMSWP by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds with the publication of the art book and the exhibition, culminated in its musical rendition with a wonderful concert in Antwerp, on September 21st, 2019 at the Bernaerts Gallery.
A great concert has also took place a few days before the Athens’ NMSWP exhibition finale at the Benaki Museum.
The following musicians played at this special live gig:
Jorunn Bauweraerts (Lais), Gregory Frateur (Dez Mona), Stef Kamil Carlens, The Golden Glows, Fast Moving Picknick (Saar van de Leest of Capsule), Gunter Nagels (Donkey Diesel) and Matt Watts. The artists were accompanied by Mirko Banovic (Arno, Arsenal) on bass, Dejan Banovic on drums, Simon Pleysier (Kaaiman, Zita Swoon) on guitar, Bram Weijters on keys and Alma Auer (Aueralma) at harp.
The concert was organised by Stef Kamil Carlens and Peter & Ilse Bernaerts.
Photos by Dimitris Legakis
"It was extraordinary to stand in the studio and see the paintings for real – the grandeur of them, with all their congested details and terrifying blank spaces. I feel connected to the essence of them. I feel they are very close to the way I write lyrics – intense bursts of memory, ecstatic detail, sudden erotics, esoteric imagery; the forging of frozen narratives that hover about like dreams, haunted and strange and life-affirming."
Nick Cave
Bernaerts, an Antwerp based family business founded in 1974 and situated in the Antwerp ‘triangle of the arts’, between the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Photography and the Museum of Contemporay Art, got in touch with Stefanos Rokos by happy accident.
The Belgian musician/artist Stef Kamil Carlens invited Mon & Emmy Bernaerts-Heylen, the founders of the company, to visit the studio of Rokos in 2014. Immediately they organized a solo show in their venue, called ‘Revert to disarray’ in 2015. The Antwerp art experts were the first to recognize the art of Rokos outside of Greece.
As auctioneers, working in the secondary market, Bernaerts organizes five big sales a year with emphasis on Old and Modern Master Paintings, Works of Art, Design and Works on Paper. Their experts need to look for the right technique, authenticity and the narrative of each work. They also need to have ‘a close look’ at the painting.
In the case of Rokos, this closer look reveals a skilfull mixture of techniques (watercolour, bodycolour, acryclics, pencil, ink) and a minutious sense of detail. Bernaerts is happy to see the book and be a mute witness of this beautiful project of an artist paying tribute to another one, in a very respectful way. The family is proud to engage with the artist trying to upscale internationally his work.
DIGITAL COMMUNICATION
