Program and publications: fall 2021

Please join us for free public events, a shared experience of art, and an opportunity to enrich your art collection with the works of our extraordinary artists.

Exhibition projects

Sylvie Bonnot and Zhu Hong: Amstel / Bridge / Delirium 
Friday, September 3–Saturday, October 31, 2021 (Capital C, Amsterdam)
In dialogue with photography

French artists Sylvie Bonnot and Zhu Hong (Chinese-born) bring 15 years of artistic experimentation with spaces to their second joint project in Amsterdam. At Capital C they start with the building’s architecture and history (past and present) in relation to the Amstel river. Envisioned at times effusively, at times darkly, the theme of water—significant to both—becomes an imaginative bridge for interrogating the many bridges we construct, over rivers, between people, or in our dreams. The kaleidoscopic exchange of bold, multidimensional artworks invites intimate encounters with each piece. At the same time, photography is brought to a thought-provoking dialogue with itself and spills into other mediums.

Known for the depths of their oeuvres, both artists are enjoying institutional recognition: Zhu Hong with her 2021-22 solo at the Arts Museum of Nantes; and Bonnot with her 2021-22 residency award from L’Observatoire de l’Espace du CNES as well as the rare Mention Spéciale du Prix Internationale de l’Art dans l’Espace 2020 from L’Académie des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Curated by Marsha Plotnitsky, with texts by Plotnitsky and Hubert Besacier.

Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia: Of the Earth
Thursday, September 16–Friday, November 21, 2021
Site-specific installation and photographic moments without a camera

Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia (b. 1989) is an award-winning multimedia artist with a singular perspective on the freedoms and tensions that underlie material expression. He finds inspiration in real and imagined topographies and in his intimate connection to the Mina culture. As works develop, geographical maps lead to layered sculptures, photographic impressions to the physicality of drawings, art materials become tools, and vice versa, seemingly ad infinitum. The show centers on a site-specific, mixed-media installation that includes his signature ceramics in a river-like formation, to be installed in the garden of TMH. It also features his delicate iron pieces Knocks and Knots, 2021, the sprawling motherly sculpture Éviono, 2018, and his unique camera-less impressions that use perforations on paper, One Day One Touch, Album Lomé-Ville, 2018.

Makouvia grew up in Lomé, Togo. After studying at the art academies in Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and Valenciennes (France), he graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Paris. He is currently completing his residency at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. The project continues TMH’s Elements cycle that began with Elsa Tomkowiak: Into Color in Spring 2021.

André de Jong: Acts of Drawing
Thursday, September 16–Friday, November 21, 2021  
Book launch

André de Jong has been pushing the limits of drawing for over five decades. Now, his work is being examined in the new monograph Acts of Drawing (published by TMH), arranged into thematic chapters that bear the titles of his series, such as “Body-Landscape” and “Folds.” The added references to times of day invite viewers to respond to De Jong’s ways of working, grounded in daily actions. The exhibition will feature highlights from his recent shows in Amsterdam and New York, which were critically acclaimed.

The book also provides an introduction to the artist’s vast photographic output. During the lockdowns, De Jong, who is at the height of his game, has returned to making photographic observations around his studio. De Jong’s photographs, as Jan Postma observes in the book, are “images that seem to identify the moment when reality becomes unrecognizable.”

TMH publications

André de Jong: Acts of Drawing
Monograph, Marsha Plotnitsky ed., Amsterdam 2021
Printed by Cultura

Elsa Tomkowiak, Zhu Hong, André de Jong
Limited editions, 2021

The Merchant House (TMH) presents contemporary art projects with sales of art as a funding strategy. Each project, curated by TMH’s Founding Artistic Director Marsha Plotnitsky, brings together an extended exhibition, cultural and research events and a dedicated catalogue/artist’s book. Program funded by art sales.