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2007-03-16
 
Marjolijn van den Assem - SEELENBRIEFE
 
15 April till 27 May 2007 Marjolijn van den Asem, SEELENBRIEFE 2000-2007. On 15 April 2007 RAM opens in all rooms of the gallery the exhibition SEELENBRIEFE, with drawings, paintings and sculptures by Marjolijn van der Assem. At the same time the book SEELENBRIEFE will appear at TAB (Timmer Art Books) Oosterhout, with texts by Drs. jisca Bijlsma, Marianne Vermeijden, Tom van As, Rob Smolders and Prof.dr. Paul van Tongeren in Dutch ,German and English. Cause for the book as well as the exhibition were the artist's research into and the depiction of the correspondence between Marie Baumgarter and Friedrich Nietzsche around 1876.

When they met, Nietzsche at 24, was a professor of philology in Basel and Marie Baumgartner was the mother of Nietzsche’s most talented pupil. They met during his frequent Saturday afternoon study visits, which in turn led to a prolific correspondence. Being bi-lingual, Marie offered to translate his work, this of course brought Marie and Nietzsche intellectually closer as she began to share his philosophical world. Their letters reveal powerful impulses, solidarity and exuberance as well as confusion. In 1876 Nietzsche travelled to Italy with friends to take a cure in the hills above Naples, Marie remained in Switzerland with her family responsibilities and worked on the translations. As a token of his appreciation, on one of their daily walks, the group picked a bouquet of wild flowers and sent it to her. In her response Marie replied that “… her entire house had the fragrance of Italy and she longed to be with kindred spirits…” Seelenreiche brief, a soul-letter, is what Nietzsche called one of Marie’s letters. Sitting on large sheets of drawing paper, spread out on the floor of her atelier, with a fountain pen in hand, Marjolijn van den Assem copied Marie’s letters. This physical immersion in the correspondence allowed Marjolijn to experience the mood of the two writers. Then, wanting to re-live and experience the time Nietzsche spent in Italy; Marjolijn visited Sorrento stayed in the same pension, Villa Rubinacci, walked the same paths, the via Campagnano, and picked a bouquet of wild flowers on the same day 125 years later. This bouquet she took to her studio and let the dried flowers tell their story. The story brought back Italy, the via Campagnano and kindred spirits. In an effort to give form to this correspondence, to weave language through images, Marjolijn drew the wild flowers, she painted, cut, drew some more, with pencil with ink, stapled and folded them; incorporating the drawings around herself. The seismographic method of working revolves around the inescapeable need, desire to be absorbed in the intense revealing handwriting in the hope of finding kindred spirits.
 
Marjolijn van den Assem - SEELENBRIEFE