2014

Bunkerexhibition #22 – KUNU NINI SASA by Maureen Prins, Marieke van der Lippe, Mink Pinster, Farah Rahman & Rayke Verhoeven 

KUNU NINI SASA / what is actually said?

About incomprehensable language around art works aka language pollution. KUNU NINI SASA is Swahili for ‘what is actually said?’ Swahili being a language which is hardly spoken in Europe as such no one understands. Five filmmakers made shorts based on five existing -incomprehensable- texts. We had the texts printed on A1 and showed the movies on a very small screen next to it. Although we thought it quite funny, we must admit it would have had more impact in a white cube gallery. We asked John Körmerling -my favorite Dutch artist- if we could borrow Ha Ha Ha

John Körmerling in Happy Street pyjama with King Alexander & Queen Maxima of The Netherlands

He said ‘sure’, call the van Abbe museum. It turned out it was too big, 5 x 7 m while the bunker measures 4 x 8 m. I felt a bit ashamed, I had not done my home work properly and bothered him for nothing. Then Juan Manuel Giraldo made letters from a light cord in reverse, as a mirror image, which reflected ha ha ha on the shiny surface of the printed texts.

Marduk and Guido in 2013

Once there was a girl -an artist herself- working at a bar just down my street, who told me she always felt stupid because she never understood the texts around art works. This made me quite angry at the bureaucratic people writing incomprehensable language. Why don’t they use language everybody understands? We made Kunu Nini Sasa for girls -and boys- like her.

Subtitling Machine by Han Hoezen originally made for De Uitgewaaierde Film

Farah Rahman – Make a Dadaist Poem for Kunu Nini Sasa

Maureen Prins – MOTO HEWA

ENGLISH: The Arts are dominated by Image and Sound. When we look at Fine Art and listen to Musical Art, there is a fascinating fine mesh subdivision based on two of the three expression forms of vibration: light and sound (life is the third). Movement is a cross connection: image-strengthening without music (movement theory) and imagining sound with music (dance art). Passing the selection in this proposal or this listing annex that request to either financing by granting financial assistance from the funds, has fallen to one (1) in 2013 is essentially to develop.
We involve the performer (Dance Artist) in development. The being will come to life through performances from August onwards. From September we’ll be givin workshops and courses, supplemented by advising non professional foundations. We prefer to implement all
seven (7) beings to develop or at least three (3), but this leads to higher costs (see VIII).

Maureen Prins – MOTO HEWA in Dutch: Gebakken Lucht, in English literal: Baked Air – figuratively: Smoke and Mirrors

Marieke van der Lippe 13-05-13

Mink Pinster – Of ‘the work’ relates to this

Mink Pinster – Of ‘the work’ relates to this

Rayke Verhoeven – Cry Baby

ENGLISH: In recent years, the emphasis of ‘X’ works shifts from massive (wall) animated drawings in which animation plays a part, to video. In her newest work 3D animation, video compositing and special effects come together as expansion to ‘X’ multi layered work. The layering is not alone in the often obscure references to archaic visual symbolism, cinema, obscure conspiracies and apocalyptic myths but also in the references to working in a virtual environment – the digital studio that the computer is- and the explicit pre-modernist appearance of the work. Which provides a remarkable contrast between the use of high-tech media and an instinctive assembling objects and often recurring elements and objects.

Cry Baby – Rayke Verhoeven

More Kunu Nini Sasa

Art Thoughtz – Hennessy Youngman aka Jayson Musson

https://www.artybollocks.com – Joke de Winter

https://www.500letters.org – Jasper Rigole

https://www.facebook.com/kununinisasa Maureen Prins & Rayke Verhoeven

NOTE! I just found a Kunu Nini Sasa on our own website -2021- I erased it there.

In haar werk onderzoekt ……. de manier waarop lichaamstaal associaties oproept bij de kijker. Die maakt het werk af, niet alleen doordat er lijnen worden weggelaten, informatie die door de hersenen wordt ingevuld, maar ook door het eigen verhaal wat het beeld oproept.

In her work, ……. explores the way in which body language evokes associations in the viewer. The viewer completes the work, not only by omitting lines—information filled in by the brain—but also through the story of its own that the image evokes.

Believe me in Dutch it is as incomprehensable as in English

Bunkerexhibition #23 ‘This must be 2019’ – Topp & Dubio

Gerard Holthuis, filmmaker and chairman of stichting De Wereld van Den Haag/ foundation The World of The Hague proposed Topp & Dubio to exhibit in the bunker. Although I still do not really understand their work, Frits and Sander work in an incredibly meticulous way. Which in itself I think worthwhile. Plus I very much like the news paper article they wrote enclosed here. I will ask AI to translate it into English.

Why We Do Not Pay for Art – Topp & Dubio

Here below, a quite dissapointing AI translation -June 2026- from the newspaper article by Topp & Dubio from 2011 here above. At the time we had a deputy minister for culture who had the sensitivity of a machine gun.

The Last Word

Why We Do Not Pay for Art

Do you also have a son or daughter who wants to become an artist? Then you probably have a well-meaning uncle or aunty ready with advice: don’t do it! Get a real job. Make sure you’re financially independent. Otherwise you’ll end up poor. And there’s some truth in that. Exceptions are made for young dancers, singers, and violinists encouraged from the age of five. Which you wouldn’t do to someone who wants to become a visual artist. They choose it themselves, against all the well-intentioned advice. Visual artists don’t receive standing ovations. For music you can charge admission, and the more recognizable it is, the better. If a hit is played and sung along to, the audience is enthusiastic. Music thrives by repetition. The same applies to a “gripping” novel or an “exciting” film.

In visual art, however, things work differently. The goal is often surprise. Therefore everything must be new and different. It should challenge the viewer and not merely confirm what they already know. Artists must continually create something new, push boundaries, and reinvent themselves. And because art is often not immediately understandable, people are reluctant to pay for it. Why pay in advance for something you don’t yet know whether you’ll like it? Would you book a surprise vacation for five thousand euros?

So is there no visual art worth paying for? There is. The musical Soldaat van Oranje / Soldier of Orange is packed with visual art. The performance costs millions of euros, yet viewers are willing to pay for it. In that production, visual art is transformed into something useful: a revolving stage, the use of authentic objects instead of cardboard replicas, and other artistic ideas that visual artists devised years ago. Through exhibitions, those ideas eventually became public property. Curious theatre-makers pick up these ideas, after which the entertainment industry can turn them into a commercial adaptation. Such a journey usually takes several decades. Then the public pays a great deal of money for these performances. They certainly would not do so if the musical were advertised as an art performance.

The internet phenomenon “planking” is a nice example too: visual art in its purest form. But the artists who many years ago were at the origin of these kinds of actions were laughed at by the people who are now engaging in them en masse. And they were right. If you are the only one who has yourself photographed as a plank in an uncomfortable place, you look pretty ridiculous. Only an artist is willing to do so.

No, visual art will never mount to anything. Abolishing grants will make no difference. Artists will simply continue working on new ideas. That is just how they are. And, against all advice, they will make their ideas available free of charge to the community, because that’s what they have always done. Society will use it to it’s own advantage because that’s how it has always been

Alexander Poesjkin – Aan de dichter (for Frits & Sander)

Leer, dichter, van het volk geen liefde te verwachten!
Een luid gerucht van lof sterft weg en komt niet weer,
En klinkt der dwazen hoon, der menschen koud verachten,
Blijf rustig dan en sterk, het drukke u niet neer.

Gij zijt een souverein: ga eenzaam door het leven,
Langs wegen vrij en wijd, waar het uw geest behaagt,
En vervolmaak wat die aan schoone vruchten draagt,
Maar denk niet dat men u naar werken loon zal geven.

Want ‘t loon is in u zelf. Gij spreekt het hoogste recht,
Het strengste oordeel hebt gij zelf u opgelegd.
En wel, zijt gij voldaan, veeleischend kunstenaar?

Zoo ja, wat nood of ’t volk uw werk dan luid beschimpt
En spuwt op het altaar, waar ’t uw vuur brandend vindt,
Uw driepoot wank’len doet met kinderlijk misbaar?

1830 vertaald uit het Russisch door Aleida Schot

Alexander Pushkin – To the Poet

Poet, though people praise you, don’t feel proud.
A minute later, people’s praise can disappear.
Hearing the verdict of a fool and laughing crowds,
You must remain unmoved, and calm and clear.

You are a czar: live on your own. Wander about
Wherever boundless musings guide your way,
Refine the fruits of your dear thoughts each day,
Don’t seek rewards or strive to be renowned.

Yourself, you are the most supreme of courts;
You pass the strictest verdicts on your works.
Determined artist, are you satisfied?

If you are pleased, let crowds be profane.
Let them disgrace the altar, spit into the flame,
And shake your tripod with a childish delight.

1830 translated from Russian by Andrey Kneller

Bunkerexhibition #24 – Implosion Chamber Evelina Domnitsch & Dmitry Gelfland

Evelina & Dmitry

The past and the future will be connected in this exhibition.

About the artists:

By combining physics, chemistry and computer science with mysterious philosophical practices, Dmitry and Evelina design environments to experience a strong sensory emotion.

The most current scientific discoveries, including so-called wave systems, are used by the artists to deepen questions about the interpretation of perception and infinity.

Such research is remarkable because the current scientific belief that forms the basis of contemporary thinking still does not contain how our consciousness actually works.
Domnitch and Gelfland offer their installations for observation to display the constant movement and transformation instead of having it recorded by media. Because these very rare phenomena take place directly in front of the viewer’s eyes, the viewer undergoes a strong sensory sensation.

This experience confronts the viewer and allows him / her to experience the difference between a scientific discovery and an intuitive perception.

To develop and display these kinds of changing processes, the artists have collaborated with various scientific institutes, including:
The Drittes Physikalisches Institut – Biophysics (University of Goettingen, Germany), the Institute of Advanced Sciences and Technologies (Japan), Ricso Lab (Russia) and the Meurice Institute (Belgium).

Evelina & Dmitry

More in bunker 2014

Marsa Abu Galawa/ vissendisco  Gerard Holthuis

Student Workshop the institute of Sonology 

Natasja party with Tabass-co & Dramtune

Natasja van Solingen & Iris Dijke