About Myself
Welcome in my personal corner.
What is it you would like to know?
As a Leo from 1961 I'm one of the older young people. People claiming they know all about it tell me I'm typically not a Leo, but Aquarius, which happens to be my ascendant.
A lot of people know me as an artist, teacher graphic design, designer of CD-covers and MultiMedia-productions, as a gallery owner or from clubs and pubs.
Art is my main passion, not only as an artist or visitor of museums and galleries but also as a collector.
I am a real workaholic, or rather a ex-workaholic but still a busy character.
If we leave art than further I'm a lover of nice diners, bitter chocolate with nuts, dancing, having a chat on a (sunny) terrace, beachwalks, the 'serious' film that for me may have an erotic touch, travel and concert + theater visits. I must have forgotten something.
Mmm, food
Not only I'm a lover of eating, also of cooking. When I was about ten years
of age I actually wanted to become a cook, when I was 15 however I decided to
become an artist, a painter. Still, five days a week I cook with fish or meat
with fresh vegetables. I cook for myself when I'm home alone, for friends when
they are visiting and ofcourse for Elisabeth, my girl.
My specialty is a fishsoup of which everyone wants to have the recipe. I keep
it a secret but I can give you a hint: in a very big pan with soup I don't add
a single drop of water, two nice bottles of wine do the good work. So now you
know how i keep my friends.
Favorite dishes:
Soup as a starter, almost a must for every good diner.
Fish, fried or cooked, sometimes even raw! (not only Japanese).
Pizza and lasagna, with a salad first (with mozarella).
Lamb, with herbs and spices, with broccoli
Candy
I'm a chocolate addict, can't keep my hands of the bitter kind with nuts. Do you know that it is the ultimate to slowly suck on a piece of bitter chocolate and after that drink a bold wine, preferably a Bourgogne?
Cream puffs, especialy the kind with "advocaat" (=eggnog), heaven! I always take a box with me when I visit my cousin.
Mixed nuts, particularly Cashews. Give me a pound or two. Garlic olives to go with a late afternoon drink, marinated mozarella, fetah ...
Live is great fun when everything is something you like.
A chat and a beer
Need I say more ...
"Brand" is my favorite brand, Grolsch comes second, sometimes a white beer. In the late evenings I go for a heavier beer: Imperator (by Brand) or Orval, a bitter Belgium beer.
When working I ofcoursedrink non-alcoholic beer ofcourse, Bavaria ofcourse.
Tango, Rock & Roll and more recently Salsa
I followed dancing lessons for seven years, four years ballroom and three years Rock & Roll. I still like to dance but there are not very many opportunities.
Sometimes I go to a salsa-concert, nice music and yes .... swinging. I'm Following
Salsa lessons by Valeriano.
Elisabeth doesn't like to go dancing. When I go dancing she prefers to go to a
friend and drink a bottle of wine.
Heroes of the white screen, lot of heroins actually
I don't go to the movies often lately, maybe I had an overdose when I was at artschool. Seen a lot of Italian and East-European films. "Crash" by David Cronenberg was the last (recent) film I saw in the (arthouse) movie theatre. In my list of favorite films I marked the ones with (sometimes more than a touch) of the erotic with a special sign (¥).
Favorite films:
Stalker (Tarkovski)
Lolita (Kubrick) ¥
Die flambierte frau (van Ackeren), with Gudrun Landgrebe ¥
Leidenshaften, with (again) Gudrun Landgrebe ¥
Die venusfalle (van Ackeren)
A clockwork orange (Kubrick)
Death in Venice; (Visconti?)
Crash (Cronenberg) ¥
Belle de jour (Bunuel) ¥
The people under the stairs (Wes Craven)
Suture
The body double (de Palma) ¥
Soylent green
Basic instinct (Verhoeven) ¥
Half moon street ¥
Favorite actrices:
1 Gudrun Landgrebe
2 Meryl Streep
3 Sigourney Weaver
Favorite actors
1 Jack Nicholson
2 Marlon Brando
3 Woody Allen (yes, really)
Favorite filmmakers (m/v)
I leave this open for this moment, it's imposible to only mention three.
Citytrips and sometimes be lazy
My favorite holiday is seeing a lot of big cities, seeing a lot, a lot of museums and theatres. For the long distances I prefer to take a comfortabel train but sometimes you have to take the car or even a plain because of the distance.
I haven't been there many times, but New York is, I think, my favorite city, followed by Paris and Chicago. I like London a lot and to everyones surprise (including mine) Venice, just for a couple of days.
Last summer (1997) I took a trip along a lot of European cities, mainly to see big exhibitions on contemporary art. To Münster for the sculpture exhibition, Wolfsburg for Bruce Nauman, Kassel for the Documenta, to Venezia (Venice) for the Bienale and the city, on my way I also visited Stuttgart, Schaffhausen and München (Munich) for the museums. Going back I crossed the "Picolo St. Bernardino", a mountain pass over the Alps to go to Lyon for the Bienale Exhibition there, it was great, I especially enjoyed the work of Pippilotti Rist of whom I bought a small work after returning to Holland. Saw the Reims cathedral and also visited Bruxelles and Antwerp (MUKA -museum- and an ultimately pleasant city).
At the end of the year I visited New Zealand, not only to have an exhibition there
but also to have a XmasBBQ on the beach.
Sometimes a club with fourty people, sometimes a stadium
Local and upcoming internationale bands in "het Patronaat", our local club in Haarlem. Hardcore guitars, expirimental, salsa.
Sometimes I go to Paradiso (Amsterdam) or another club.
Saw The Who in London and Rotterdam gezien (1996 / 97).
The Stones in Paris, London and Rotterdam gezien (1995), will see them one or more times this year (Amsterdam, London, ...).
Abstract
My absolute alltime favorit is the American artist Robert Motherwell. By the way, I really have a preference for American art, also Barnett Newman, Robert Ryman, Mark Rothko, Stuart Davis, Elsworth Kelly, Willem de Kooning (OK, born Dutch) and Joseph Cornell are amongst my favorites. Also Christo and Warhol by the way. On Video-art Bruce Nauman en Gary Hill are the top.
From the European artists Oskar Schlemmer is the absolute top painter, followed by Francis Picabia, Gerhard Richter and Egon Schiele. The grafic works of Max Klinger are the top in that area.
Of all the Dutch artists Mondriaan (Mondrian) is lonely at the top, not only with his best-known works (straight lines, basic colors), I also admire his older landscape works. Jan Schoonhoven is the top if we talk about sculpturs (reliefs) and drawings, followed bij Carel Visser and Henk Visch. Wat I also admire are the drawings of Piet van der Hem, from the twenties & thirties.
From the younger artists I really like Robert Zandvliet and Marien Schouten (no
family). I also wanna mention a few less famous artists: Piet Tuytel, Mariëtte
Linders, Helen Frik, Lon Robbé, Jan van der Ploeg, ..., ...
This is how you can reach me:
Kees Schouten
Burgwal 2
NL 2011 BD Haarlem
tel: 023 5361480
eMail: kees@schouten.com
Groetjes (with kind regards),
Kees