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Vincent Van Gogh, "The Yellow House (The street)". September 1888. Credits: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
In 1888 Vincent Van Gogh moved to Arles (France) with his close friend and painter Paul Gaugin, where he rented an apartment that Vincent came to name as "The Yellow House". His aim was to establish what he called a "studio of the south", a utopian place to live and collaborate with fellow painters while studying the surrounding countryside. However, things turned out to be hard for Vincent, who ended up cutting off his ear and entering a tragic period. The ideal of The Yellow House was never accomplished.
The figure of Van Gogh as a painter has been highly romanticised, and so did his project of The Yellow House. However, this is not the fact on which we should center our attention. The heart of the matter is that Van Gogh felt the urge of creating a space where art was alive, set into motion, involving collective creativity. This is the main reason why the concept of The Yellow house can be reactivated in a contemporary context, in the city of Middelburg. Ideally The Yellow House would become a yearly spring/summer festival that gets together students, artists and citizens in the public space, aiming for a more interactive way of displaying art.
Nuria Bofarull (founder & curator)
The collective exhibition of The Yellow House took place in the public space of the city of Middelburg, creating a route where the interventions could take place in different spots of the city.
route signage
The starting point of the exhibition was 'Vincent's Room'. The installation was inspired by the iconography that surrounds Vincent van Gogh's work. In this room visitors were able to get their map in order to follow the route of the exhibition.
Open source Rough-and-ready-chair by Tord Boontje (2004), built by the 2016 Art & Design class
"Vincent's Ear" (2017, left) and "Tulips" (2018), Nuria Bofarull
Inside of map hand-out
Poster
Interview taken during The Yellow House exhibition
Interview taken during The Yellow House exhibition