Step into my Studio

2012-02-01T05:56:00.000-08:00

Contact: isa [at] isatenhaeff [dot] eu

Getting Ready for a Book Fair..

2012-01-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

Working with bookbinder Caro de Bruin.. next venture: Pop-Up
On the 28th and 29th of April we will present our work on the GIAB book fair in Glasgow. For more info check the GIAB website: here

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Ambassador Stance

2012-01-03T23:44:00.000-08:00

"As ambassadors of our societies, we have gone and experienced all the wonders of this world.

We have brought back many things for you to see.. "

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This re-enactment in the form of a staged photograph is the starting point for my new installation work. More will follow..

2011-12-01T16:36:00.000-08:00

G. and Me

2011-09-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

- Romantic Heroes' History Now -

What to do when you find that His Story not only repeats itself, but also morphs itself into the lives of so many? Thereby creating many parallel histories..

To be expected is an artist book titled G.and Me. Showing a collection of letters, historicizing texts, staged photographs and photographs of installations. In each I depart from my "relationships" to different sources of information surrounding the artist G.

With the advice of bookmaker Carolien de Bruin, I am developing a book fitting to host the absurdly coinciding worlds of G. and Me.
The staged photographs for this book have been made with the generous help of: Bram Lamers, Hans Keller and Peter Cleutjens.

2011-09-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

2011-09-13T23:43:00.001-07:00

2011-09-13T23:43:00.000-07:00

2011-09-13T14:42:00.000-07:00

Tale of Natural Large Stages and Sound Chips

2011-09-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

At the request of Soil Ensemble, I developed a hand sewn book called Tale of Natural Large Stages and Sound Chips. The book features a six-page story about monumental shapes a.k.a. "stages". I am much indebted to bookbinder Caro de Bruin's enthusiasm and advice. The book is presented this Fall (2011) in concurrence with Soil shows, see: Soil for shows this Fall.

The Invisible Girl, Text and Staged Photography

2011-08-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

Self-publication of 9 x text and photo. I juxtapose studio shots with texts about communication problems in public space. With this work I also reflect upon Louise Bourgeois' work "He Disappeared into Complete Silence" (1947) with which she adresses her observations as a newcomer to New-York. ~~Keep posted for the Book-Launch, most likely beginning 2012!~~

Publication: Article in Public Art and Ecology by D.D. Lombardi featuring my work

2011-08-10T05:42:00.000-07:00

"Repurposing with a Passion", by D. Dominick Lombardi in: Public Art and Ecology, due December 2011. 

Excerpt of the article featuring my work: 

The  process of repurposing materials has immeasurable benefits.  There are  instinctive, economic, esthetic, philosophical, and even  political  reasons to recycle, and visual artists are a very big part of  this  process. In an attempt to bring together compelling examples of  this  trend, D. Dominick Lombardi asked a number of artists from various  parts  of the world to answer four questions with the hopes of  clarifying this  ever-increasing phenomenon of repurposing with a  purpose.

[...] 

Isa Tenhaeff has her studio in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her art plays the physical world against the psychological. Her compositions and installations conjure up all sorts of emotions and feelings that can be anywhere from political to playful, or mysterious to menacing. There is a frailty to her wok as well, a vulnerability that is quite compelling, and at times, puzzling. 

Ms. Tenhaeff: For my art I collect used objects ranging from broken toys, precious clothing and building ornaments from the trash to fine art prints and my own academy drawings and paintings. 

I look for “gem-quality” in the materials I collect: these things are often broken or worn-out but there is a spark - a classic sense of power or beauty that I can use. Also my objects have to bring up a lot of different (personal, public, historical) references. 

I work from historical images and from a notion of historical continuum in which patterns, compositions, notions of proportion, etc. are repeated. As a sociologist I am trained at looking at people, seeing patterns in our behavior and in the material outcomes of this behavior. In rough lines images and structures are repeated over and over, though details may vary. I look for these kind of patterns in ‘old’ art and architecture and find absurd similarities to our world today. Similar to the idea of golden ratio, I search for the best ways to bring out these immaterial references through ordering materials.

History, meaning and beauty are not about power, status and priceless materials, but about ordering or arranging architecturally, finding the right  “engine” for an installation and seeing.

About D. Domick Lombardi: click 

Show: Maybe YES<>Maybe NO

2011-06-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

Installations based on early Renaissance images, intuitively attached to today's patterns and occurences. When: First three Sundays of July / joined event on the first Sunday with sound performances and installations by Valentina Vuksic and Jan-Kees van Kampen in their [adjacent] studios. Where: my studio in the Bijlmer / Contact: isa[at]isatenhaeff[dot]eu 

    
"I'm too Wild to tell you"
Photograph, Polaroid Original
19x12 cm 

Wilde Beast Installation (2011)
Pencil drawn hide on wood and iron base in an environment marked bij wooden elements and foam mask
ca 250x250x210 cm

Romancing Wilde Beast, performance, here shown in a video with home-made soundtrack

Nuit Blanche @ De Brakke Grond

2011-06-09T07:37:00.000-07:00

On 18th of June two of my installations can be seen @ Nuit Blanche in De Brakke Grond from 19:00 - 04:00. More info click here

Part of BunkDonna, installed in one of the red rooms @ the theatre balcony of the Brakke Grond (2011)

Plaster, mdf, ceramics, cloth and photoprint

Dimensions ca. 300x200x200 cm

Classics in Space

2010-08-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

My work was selected to fill two exhibition cases @ Rechtbank Amsterdam / From: September 10 through November 10 2010 / At: Rechtbank Amsterdam, Strawinskyhuis

Easy show

2010-08-20T05:24:00.000-07:00

Donderdag 16 september 2010

Opening 20:00 uur

EASY SHOW

Kamer Laakkwartier

Pasteurstraat 82

2522RM Den Haag

Click: Easy show

Nuit Blanche

2010-06-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

Two installations of mine can be seen at: De Brakke Grond during the Nuit Blanche starting 22:00 on Saturday 19th of June 2010. For more info, see: nuit blanche

The Secret life of Nature

2010-04-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

From 02.04 `till 16.04 2010

At Andokides Window, Staalstraat 7, Amsterdam

Installation of two- and three-dimensional art, combining three views on fibre & how it came to be.

Artists

Inica Loe/Isa Tenhaeff/Mara van der Kleij

Suffer Like Sushi

2010-01-03T14:05:00.000-08:00

From January 04 `till April 30 2010, installation work investigating iconic celebrations of sufferance can be seen @ Andokides Window, Staalstraat no 7 in Amsterdam 

Normalizing the Unthinkable, a Group Exhibition

2009-10-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

NORMALIZING THE UNTHINKABLE  

a Group show at Punt WG 

On society’s everyday disturbing events

Saturday November 7 from 19:00 `till 24:00and Sunday November 8 from 10:00 `till 17:00

Participating artists: 

Thijs Kaufmann

Dimitri.CMadimin

David KC Moir

Leonard van Munster

Henny Overbeek

IsaTenhaeff

Amy Wong

Quantumvis V

2009-06-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

Group show Quantumvis V runs from June 19th`till  July 24th @ galleries RC De Ruimte, IJmuiden and De Service Garage,  Amsterdam. I am showing an installation (Amsterdam) and 4 drawings (IJmuiden).

With Love, S.B. 2007-2008

2007-12-02T03:32:00.001-08:00

Part of the installation With Love, S.B. 2007/08. Shown  @ The Humberstone Gallery (Dec 2007 and June 2008) and @ The Michaelhouse (May 2008), both in Cambridge UK.

About this Installation
Title: With Love S.B (2007-2008)

From 2007 until 2008, my work was about displaying historical figures through different artefacts, referring to the way social events negotiate meaning over time. The persona of Saartjie Baartman, aliassed The Hottentot Venus, lead to a collection of works. I worked from the title With Love S.B., suggesting that this collection was a personal gift of Saartjie. Instead, a set of artefacts is shown that is very much like one you could find in a historical museum. 

Saartjie was a South African Nkosa woman, brought to Europe about 200 years ago. Allegedly, she came of her own free will - probably because they told her she would become a star. Instead she was paraded in freak shows (UK), and later she became a scientific object for study (FR). When she died she was put up for display in various parts in a natural history museum in France until the 70-ies. When South Africa was declared independent they lobbied for her body back, and when this happened in 2003, she was ritually buried in her own region. Her story intrigued me, because throughout her life and death she was made the centre of ritualistic social displays. I wanted to create a series of works that would portray her in these different roles, much like a museum collection showing different anthropological viewpoints with collected artefacts.

Isa Tenhaeff 
Cambridge, UK, 2008

[For some more images click here]

Tea?

2007-10-07T05:11:00.000-07:00

Tea was a tribute to the memory of my grandmother, where the most painfull aspect of her not being around is the fact that we can no longer enact the rituals of everyday. The cups were sold @ my graduation exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, in 2001.