Studio visits JOEY RAMONE: 3 and 4 April

On Monday, April 3 and Tuesday, April 4, 2023, Kiki Petratou and Hans Bakker of gallery & project space JOEY RAMONE will make a series of studio visits to artists in The Hague. Kiki is an independent curator and artist and Hans has a background as a collector, coach and creative therapist. Together they started the gallery and project space JOEY RAMONE in Rotterdam in 2012. In addition to six solo exhibitions annually in the gallery, JOEY RAMONE organizes a rich program of activities and collaborations.

Kiki and Hans describe the areas of interest for JOEY RAMONE as follows:

"We see our work as that of creators and curators of context and it is within this broad approach that we understand and include the diverse but overlapping occupations and roles that we have had within the fields of art and culture. Having worked as an artist (Kiki) for over a decade and being a collector (Hans) we still find this experience relevant to our curatorial practise and the choices we make. This very often leads us to processes that aim to challenge received notions about the different roles distributed. Generally playing with notions that are somehow predominately fixed drives us to experiment further and redefine those notions: a commercial versus a non-profit space, a curator versus a gallerist. When we prepare an exhibition we consider very much the space in which the exhibition will take place, as a matter of fact the given space functions many times as a generator of ideas. Other times of course the ideas come first and this will determine the list of artists that we will work with.

We are generally interested in formulating conceptual ways of seeing and discursive events crossing art and reality. Many of our projects focus on interplays of sensibility, body, institution and memory, driven by the curiosity to explore human conditions, boundaries of knowing and how art embodies and exceeds our imagination to address various concerns toward humanity, culture and relevance of life."

Sign up
If you are interested in a studio visit by JOEY RAMONE, you can let us know until Sunday, March 19, 2023. The responses received, together with any suggestions from Stroom, will be submitted to JOEY RAMONE. From the list, Kiki and Hans will make a selection from which the visit program will be compiled. You will receive a message shortly after the deadline to inform you whether you have been selected by JOEY RAMONE for a studio visit.

Short biography Hans Bakker
Hans Bakker (Hilversum, NL, 1967) is a creative therapist and gallery owner based in Rotterdam. He studied Psychiatry and Creative Therapy, Book making and Publishing. Being an art collector since 2001 he started his own gallery space in 2008 under the name HBgalerie. In 2011 he teamed up with Kiki Petratou to co-organize the multidisciplinary project ATTRACTION OF THE OPPOSITES that had several episodes at the artist run space CUCOSA in Rotterdam, at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and Kunstvlaai - Festival of Independents in Amsterdam and included a comprehensive publication. In the beginning of 2012 Kiki & Hans launched JOEY RAMONE, a gallery for contemporary art in Rotterdam. Next to his art related activities Hans Bakker is also active as a Creative Therapist and Coach for people with Autism and learning difficulties.

Short biography Kiki Petratou
Kiki Petratou (Patras, GR, 1971) is an independent curator based in Rotterdam. She obtained a BA Fine Art from the Athens School of Fine Arts (2001), holds an MA in Arts from the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam and Plymouth University, UK (2004) and attended the Research Masters in Media Studies at the Univerisity of Amsterdam (2007). She is co-founder of JOEY RAMONE gallery & project space in Rotterdam. Her curatorial activities include numerous exhibitions and individual events in the programmes of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, ROODKAPJE Rotterdam, WORM, Rotterdam, Nevan Contempo Gallery in Prague, Kunstvlaai - Festival of Independents in Amsterdam, Re-Culture Festival in Greece, Salón in Madrid, a.o. She has been a guest lecturer at the Zurich Academy of the Arts, Piet Zwart Institute and Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague and Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium a.o. She is recipient of the International Curator Residency Award at the Sant Andreu Contemporani in Barcelona (2021) in collaboration with Fabra i Coats - Fàbrica de Creació and the Institut Ramon Llul. Within the framework of this programme, she also formed part of the jury of the Miquel Casablancas Prize for the Visual Arts and developed a curatorial project with a selection of artists from the Catalan context, chosen from applicants to the prize.

JOEY RAMONE
Gallery & Project Space
JOEY RAMONE was founded in 2012 by Greek artist Kiki Petratou & Dutch collector Hans Bakker. The gallery, which they like to call an 'Half Artist-Run Gallery', is committed to developing an ambitious and vibrant multidisciplinary and cross-generational program. It has been presenting national and international artists who use a diverse range of media to explore contemporary socio-political, cultural and technological themes. In 2016 the gallery stepped into a new phase by doubling its space. This not only instigated the interaction between the artists, galleries and their public but it also created new exhibition and collaborative formats. Next to the regular gallery program comprised by six solo exhibitions a year, the gallery has been running an irregular side program, which includes curated group shows, artist talks, lectures, film screenings, performances and project collaboration. JOEY RAMONE has been co-operating with festivals such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Poetry International and Motel Mozaique and non-profit spaces such as Roodkapje, DE PLAYER and WORM. The objective is to provide a platform for contemporary art and discourse, by combining the attributes of both a conventional gallery (facilitating the long-term development of the artists' careers) and the more content and context-based approach of a non-profit initiative. JOEY RAMONE together with House of Chappaz won the Discovery Prize at Art Brussels 2022 for their joint booth with a solo presentation by Spanish duo Momu & No Es.