Project No. 9 EINDHOVEN-LUIK, JOHN KORMELING

Project No. 9 EINDHOVEN-LUIK: John Kormeling
retrospective exhibition and three new commissions
2 April – 12 June 2005

Z 33
Zuivelmarkt 33
B-3500 HASSELT, Belgium
T +32 (0)11 29 59 96
F +32 (0)11 29 59 61
z33 [​at​] limburg.be
Tuesday – Saturday: 11 am to 6 pm
Sundays: 2 to 5 pm
Free admission

www.z33.be

Arts centre Z33 focuses on contemporary art and design through integrated multidisciplinary projects. Its name, introduced in 2002, refers to the address: Zuivelmarkt 33 in Hasselt, Belgium. The centre is situated in the former beguinage of Hasselt. Its exhibition space consists of the 18th century beguinage infrastucture (houses and garden) and a larger exhibition wing built in 1958.
John Kormeling (NL) is known both at home and abroad as an artist and architect. Although he was trained as an architect, most of his work is in the form of plastic art assignments that balance on the boundary between functional buildings and architectural sculptures. In clear and extremely meticulously executed designs he uses almost cartoon-like architectural forms combined with such trivial items as fairground lighting and advertising. In addition to this, he frequently emerges as an inventor, planner or urban designer.

The general public will probably remember the ‘Drive-In Wheel’, a giant Ferris wheel for cars on which you can briefly escape the traffic jam. But John Kormeling also invented the ‘no smoking’ brand of cigarettes, for which free publicity is made worldwide, and also the square car.

John Kormeling has won a great many (international) prizes: in 2004, for his teahouse at Valkenburg Park in Breda (NL) and for the ‘Hot Spring’, a vertical, climbable map he made for the Japanese city of Matsunoyama. Recently he created the entrance for the ‘It’s All Dali’ exhibition in Rotterdam (Boijmans Van Beuningen).

The No. 9 EINDHOVEN-LUIK project, which John Kormeling will present both in and outside the Z33 arts centre, comprises a retrospective exhibition and his solutions to three assignments Z33 has given him.
The exhibition in the ’58 wing of the arts centre enables the visitor to make the acquaintance of John Kormeling’s work, with the ideas behind it and with the man himself. Models, drawings and objects bring a certain clarity to these questions.

John Kormeling’s work on urban design, infrastructure and architecture can also be called ‘crystal clear’. And as it is no superfluous luxury to clear up the tangle of certain dossiers that have often dragged on for years, Z33 also commissioned John Krmeling to reflect on and discuss several typical knotty Belgian problems and present his ideas.

His first task, to which the project title EINDHOVEN-LUIK refers, is to find a solution to a ‘bottle neck’ on the road between Eindhoven (NL) and Liege (B).

For his second task, Kormeling will be tackling the splendid man-made landscape of Haspengouw, the Belgian region south of Hasselt that is thickly strewn with fruit farms and that has a Roman road running through it. Originally, the road connected Boulogne-sur-Mer in France to Cologne in Germany. Now, it still is ubiquitous, but often forgotten. John Kormeling will propose a new way to spotlight this important piece of heritage.

The captivating history of mining in the region around Hasselt is also waiting to be opened up to the world. The elan of the coal barons and the enthusiastic enterprise of those who want to make use of the buildings once again fascinate John Kormeling. He will show us his ideas on how this heritage, and in particular the mine site in Beringen, might be integrated in our daily life again.

The exhibition, a documentary that shows things very clearly, a ride in one of John Kormeling’s square cars, workshops for children and architects, talks by John Kormeling himself, … will give the visitor a better insight into Kormeling’s work.

And in the course of the exhibition John Kormeling would like to challenge the visitors to formulate their own ideas.