Jo Baer

Jo Baer, courtesy of Petrovsky & Ramone

Last Friday I visited the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven with my friend (and visual artist) Ameli Viaux. The museum it self is every artists wet dream to be able to exhibit in. Enormous and (sometimes extremely) high white walls, big enough but not too, so it gives you the feeling of intimacy. The classification of the area is very playful and everything besides the floor is white.

There were 3 solo-exhibitions of female artists and one of them, Jo Baer (born in Seattle, now living in Amsterdam), to me was the eye-catcher. She was born in 1929 and started exhibiting when my parents still were children. But what she's created in all those years and recently, definitely is of all times. When I look at her oeuvre I feel just like a rookie, still wet behind the ears. With this exhibition you travel through a selection out of 50 years of her art which changes from abstract expressionism to extremely abstract minimalistic to radical figuration. Being on top of her success in 1975 she dare to turn away from abstraction and started examining and experimenting with figurative forms. Her goal was to connect social reality and illusion.

I endorse her statement: "All of the so-called abstract artists always have a tissue of meaning. I always did certainly... I meant layers. I meant boundaries. I meant very specific things always” Jo Baer, 1987