Hoos Blotkamp

Upstream Gallery proudly presents the work of artist Hoos Blotkamp (1943 - 2014) in its private viewing space. This presentation coincides with the opening of Manual, an exhibition by Rafael Rozendaal.

Hoos Blotkamp has been a prominent figure in the Dutch cultural landscape. She was curator at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and served as the head of visual arts at the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science (OCW). She later became the director of the Film Museum in Amsterdam, a role she held until 2000. However, her visual artwork—pursued alongside her demanding professional career—remains less known.

During the final years of her art history studies in 1971, Blotkamp learned computer programming as part of a course in Sonology at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht, a globally recognized institution known for its groundbreaking work in computer-generated music and art. This was the same institution where her close friend, artist Peter Struycken, had begun working with computers in 1968. She soon started creating visual works through computer technology, developing a distinctive artistic approach.

Initially, her colorful, graphic patterns existed solely as software: infinite moving images on a screen, ephemeral and continuously overwritten by the next. By around 1990, however, her computer-generated images began to take on a more permanent form. Under the name Decomachine, she experimented with various applied art forms, such as textile and ceramic printing, as well as creating works on stretched fabric—examples of which are featured in this presentation.

It was only in the final months before her passing in 2014 that Blotkamp began to publicly share her work. She designed a wall covering for the auditorium at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and, together with her partner Carel Blotkamp, held an exhibition at the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. This is the first time her work is being showcased in Amsterdam.

Hoos Blotkamp in the Private Viewing Space
→ 31 August - 28 September, 2024
OPENING: 31 August 17.00 - 19.30 hrs
Kloveniersburgwal 95, Amsterdam