Besides being an avant-garde painter, German artist Mama Baer (also known for her collaboration with 'Sonic youth') gives music performances together with her husband Kommissar Hjuler as well. He proves that being a headofficer of police is not mutually exclusive with being a great artistic performer. Together Mama Bear and Kommissar Hjuler frequently perform with their 'dada-esque sound poetry'. Thursday the 1st of August this unique duo will amaze Amsterdam with a concert in the iLLUSEUM, starting at 20:30, entrance: 6 euros.

Naast haar beeldend werk is de Duitse avant-garde kunstenares Mama Baer (o.a. bekend van samenwerking met 'Sonic youth') ook bekend als muzikante. Samen met haar man Kommissar Hjuler brengt zij geregeld hun 'dadaeske geluidspoezie' ten gehore. Kommissar Hjuler bewijst dat een functie als hoofdkommissaris van de politie best gepaard kan gaan met een leven als artistiek performer. Donderdag 1 augustus zullen de klanken van dit bijzondere duo de sfeer van het iLLUSEUM verrijken tijdens een eenmalig concert, aanvang 20:30, entree: 6 euro. Adres: Witte de withstraat 120, Amsterdam. meer informatie: www.illuseum.com en www.asylum-lunaticum.de

 

 

Kommissar Hjuler and Mamma Baer are husband and wife avant garde musicians and artists. They are extrordinarily prolific poducing many many cds and records each year alongside many, many paintings, sculptures and puppets.

Kommissar hjluer is a German policeman. As a young man he collected what he considered strange and difficult music - not quite knowing that there was a similar avant-  garde tradition untill he visited Karlheinz Stockhausen. Soon after that visit he contacted other "industrial" composers such as Steven Stapleton, Merzbow, Due Process and Masami Akita. Those encounters inspired him to make his own music ( along with Jan Iwer ) under the name Tuuken Laulu. Those compositions soon found a small but significant audience  amongst collectors of such material. Soon after Hjuler met his wife Mamma Baer and they began to work together as musicians and then later as artists - creating works both singularly andas collaborators. Mamma Baer's paintings are expressionist in style - with an underlying threat of violence  apparent in each work while Kommissar Hjuler's painting/sculptures hint at a fantasy world of strange hybrid beasts and perverted sexuality. A series of Puppe ( dolls ) created uot of dissected and dissembled Barbie dolls and children's toys disturb in their frank raw nakedness and hints of BDSM powerplays. A series of small "Bloemenbeet" (Flowerbeds) are works about fertility and love and employ used condoms as essential parts of the constructions.

Arguably the duo's work might be seen as examples of outsider art - in that neither are trained nor professionals in the forms that they work in but there is a sophistication at play here - knowing referenceing throughout of the oeuvre of artists such as Dieter Roth and Hans Bellmer as wel as nods to de Sade and Fluxus.

 

German avant-garde artist Mama Baer made a series of paintings, for the Dierbaar Bestiarium exhibition at the iLLUSEUM, that are haunting in their vision as well as beautiful in execution.  Starting with a painting called " Slovakan Plant Danger " (sic) that was directly inspired by an article from a magazine from the 60's about an ultra poisonous plant that could destroy all of mankind - a vision starts to enfold of the human race being endangered. After a virus has taken place more and more people are beginning to look deformed, be it from fear or cancerous growings due to a mysterious disease. The people we see live in camps (" lager ") as if they seek refuge. A recurring theme is that of a camp-doctor, although he seems to provide help to the victims, their faces are distorted. Perhaps the doctor is making experiments instead of operations, in fact he starts to get doctor Mengele-like proportions. His portrait in itself becomes an icon that  instills fear...