Mirjam de Zeeuw | Overview sharpens the mind

Mirjam de Zeeuw | Overview sharpens the mind  

Exhibition hours: Wednesday, March 12, from noon until Friday, March 14, until 4 p.m.

Mirjam de Zeeuw: 'Overview sharpens the mind' features three photo series from my archive. The series 'Stoves' consisting of five digitally processed prints of scans of photo negatives (2024). The diptych 'Part 1 and Part 2,' two digitally edited prints of scans of photonegatives (2025) and an analog photo series of five fitting rooms, from the publication of Installation 13 (1988-989).

Formally, this research project explores three different modes of presentation in relation to space. A spatial relationship, a visual relationship and a content relationship. The three-dimensionality of a presentation is understood during the creation process through the overview of a concept in a model. This is followed by arranging in the space itself using design sheets. Having a space edited while installing the works leads to insight. 

The choice of the subject of stoves follows from an image analysis of previously created collages. The Stove series is presented here both autonomously in an installation of Stove 3, and as a whole hung on the wall and adapted to the fitting room series shown below. The installation of Stove 3 consists of four times the same print, which together form one image through repetition and rhythm. They refer to design principles in architecture. The method of presentation emphasizes a spatial relationship with the given location, by connecting the wall and the floor. No frivolity of image can be observed in this arrangement through variation in presentation.

The two series hanging one above the other represent a reference to a common way of presentation in a frame and in a passe-partout. Both visually reveal an atmosphere of constriction. The images are single-minded and introspective. 

The stoves depicted are not burning; they do not radiate heat. They were photographed in a private home and in a stove store where the carpet evokes the suggestion of a living room. Without fire no warmth. An empty cold shell remains. In some images, only the traces of use are visible. However, a stove does evoke an association of warmth, which makes the bombastic image somewhat bearable. 

The diptych of black-and-white prints shown here shows a substantive relationship. Three ladies are waiting in a porch for the parade during a national holiday. It is a narrative, a narrative succession of snapshots. Movements are captured that simultaneously suggest a change, of liveliness in communication with each other and each to himself. Both images are inseparable as a result of this and the fixed waiting location. The rigidity, or being frozen in a photograph, is viewed with a witticism.'