Rob Scholte - Silkscreen, Peace of Münster

Silkscreen by Rob Scholte. "Peace of Munster" (2000) Rob Scholte does not want to be an artist who, in the isolation of his studio, commits deeply felt, strongly personal expression. In his eyes, art must convey a message. His art has the visual power of a billboard along the highway. It appeals directly, but is the opposite of superficial. His art is layered by personal interpretation, humor, intelligence and expertise. And although his paintings give the impression that they have been created spontaneously, nothing could be further from the truth. Rob Scholte (Amsterdam, 1958) Scholte lived in Castricum, Doorn, Heiloo and Egmond aan den Hoef. From 1977 to 1982 he studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. After that he was part of the artist collective W139, where he debuted with Sandra Derks in 1982 with the 'masterpiece' Rom 87, a series of free-style painted variations on a book of children's coloring pages. He would replace this style with meticulously painted works that he began exhibiting in 1984 in The Living Room. Scholte's works were on display at Documenta in 1987 and in 1990 he was allowed to decorate the Dutch pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In 1986 he caused a stir with a painted postcard, Utopia (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen). When pointed out that this was a quote from Manet's Olympia, Scholte responded with a painting on which the newspaper article with this criticism and image was supposedly painted; a literal quote of half a newspaper page. With How to Star, a solo exhibition in Boijmans Van Beuningen, paintings from 1983-1988, Scholte received both praise and criticism. In 1991 he met the model, also soap and film star, Micky Hoogendijk. She became director of his BV and on 31 May 1994 they got married in the house temple the RoXY. In 1993 Scholte became a teacher at the art academy in Kassel, a job he would resign from in 1999. In 1991, Rob Scholte BV won the commission for a 1200 square meter wall and ceiling painting on the Huis Ten Bosch Resort in Nagasaki, Japan. Scholte worked with a large number of assistants on the painting entitled Après nous le déluge, about the continuous repetition of war in history. It was to open on 9 August 1995, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, but had to be postponed due to an attack on Scholte Scholte is an image maker. He arranges and places images - from the mass media, from his own extensive archive - in a new context, thereby providing those images with a new meaning. In his works one often finds contradictions and oppositions that are 'overcome' in their new context. The meticulously painted works by his hand are usually produced by assistants and signed by him himself. In doing so, he follows a 17th-century method of working. His working method is illustrative of postmodernism and emphasises the permanent influx of images that surround, shape and mould us. The theme is always the media, he draws inspiration from it, criticizes its manipulation and also acts as a 'media personality' himself.