A Vision Forever Fresh | Galerie Hamer

Last year saw the closure of Galerie Hamer after 54 years of bringing exciting new art to the Dutch public. It never showed the usual art, but instead specialised in uniquely idiosyncratic work produced away from the dominant art world, and mostly ignored by it. Throughout that time its Director, Nico van der Endt demonstrated an unwaveringly good eye for the best of this art from elsewhere, often discovering new artists and introducing to The Netherlands many that were already known a little in other places, from Nikifor, Willem van Genk, and Roy Wenzel, to Davood Koochaki and Yalcin Chihangir. Sometimes known as naïve art, art brut, or outsider art (a term that Van der Endt introduced to Holland in the 1980s), it remained for Galerie Hamer to be the only commercial space in the country that was dedicated just to this type of work. Its closure, therefore, leaves a void. This exhibition is a celebration of Van der Endt’s huge contribution to the Dutch art scene, and offers a chance to experience a Galerie Hamer redux, with work chosen from the gallery’s stock.