Last Saturday, 2 April, I attended the opening of four exhibitions in Amsterdam featuring work by Martyn Last, who died suddenly in September 2015. He was only 54 years old. The curators Jeroen Werner and Henk Wijnen (i.c.w. the galleries) created an impressive tribute to their late friend and art brother. It is an experience to see so much of Last's work together.
I experienced the works in relief at ARTTRA gallery as poetic, modern hieroglyphics. At Suzanne Biederberg Gallery, I saw the richly papered installation Storyboard of a Bank Director; Assembly art in the tradition of Daniel Spoerri (1930). Martyn Last made this work during a tumultuous period in his life. The hieroglyphs and the installation are two completely different works, but both super strong.
In each gallery, I experienced a different side of Last's imaginative universe. Each time, you see different materials (stone, bronze, wood, paper) and completely different forms (sculptures, embossed works (works in relief), collages, installations, photographs). Last concentrated on the linguistic side of the universe, somewhat similar to the Dutch Zero movement and the French New Realists.
Last was sensitive in life and reacted strongly to the outside world in general, and to personal experiences in particular. Along these lines, his work was always concerned with arranging and rearranging reality. He drew from a large register and possessed a palette of contradictory ingredients: classical versus contemporary, personal versus universal, morbid versus light-hearted and humorous. Moreover, his art is often playful and overwhelming.
Go see. Talk and write about it. Tell others about it. And buy his latest catalogue at Boekie Woekie. The exhibitions can be seen until the end of April. The public can only visit De Kring until 11 May. (see:www.martynlast.nl)
Those wishing to see more of Martyn Last's work should visit England & Co Gallery, his gallery in London, next year.
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