Robert Kruzdlo 1972

Rijks akademie van beeldende kunsten

Robert Kruzdlo

27-04-1949 New Jersey

USA

Who is Robbie Robert Kruzdlo?

An introduction to his work. It has become habit to focus on the constant changes that Robert Kruzdlo makes in his works of art. The speed with which Robbie Kruzdlo changes from one subject to the next is not incomprehensible: it is in his nature.

He burdens his audience with a sense of discontinuity, while he himself maintains at a self-confident ease. Not many people will thank him for this, or will they…? Surely the attentive spectator must be able to recognize the same artist in all those different styles. Fortunately, most people do. Robbert Kruzdlo’s work surprises people.

It takes one off guard, and forces one to search for the constant element in all the change that one sees. Because there is indeed something of a silent continuity hidden in the permanent change. Many philosophers wouldn’t have any problem with this. Think about Nietzsche, who preferred constant change to imitate the beauty of life. Kruzdlo’s expressiveness takes on this shape, which is in fact indefinable.

The discontinuity of his style is essential to this shape. The spectator sees disorder, chaos and confusion.

Meeting Robbert Kruzdlo himself feels like flying from life to death, from structuralism to deconstruction. Whoever gets to meet him, must surrender to his amazing honesty, which many people will find difficult to do. Robbert Kruzdlo is a European, especially a Catalonian European, but he is more than that. He is a citizen of the world who has lived in five different countries. Kruzdlo has participated in several artistic projects in different towns and cities, one of them being a series of aquarelle paintings on and in Girona, Catalonia, in 1972. Many other projects followed: Kruzdlo has done drawings, sculptures, music, theatre and other performances.

For the project ‘Muziek Totaal’ in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in 1989, Robbert Kruzdlo made a very successful series of film compositions to go with silent  movies directed by the Catalonian film maker Buñuel and several others. Many invitations

followed from within different Dutch cities. Sure enough Kruzdlo feels at home in all artistic genres, because he is also a writer. Robbert Kruzdlo expresses himself on his web log, which is part of one of Holland’s leading newspapers, but also through a Dutch radio station and in conversations with other intellectuals. Robert Kruzdlo loves writing complex, sometimes illogical stories, that are incomprehensible to other people, whoever and wherever they are. But to some people the stories do make sense and they are the ones who get to understand Kruzdlo. When they do, they will find themselves awaking with a shock, suddenly realizing the beauty of Kruzdlo’s works of art.

This exposition in Girona Casa Cultural 2008 is Kruzdlo’s third project on Girona, Catalonia. Catalonia was and is a region that he can tell many fascinating stories about. This exposition comprises fifty drawing of faces. Kruzdlo doesn’t want to call them portraits, but countenances. Behind every face is a different person. It is not easy to explain, but those who enjoy Levinas might understand it. Take a look for yourself, every face has regained its countenance. These drawings, these countenances of the Gironese people, are part of Kruzdlo’s honest and spontaneous ways of describing life in the Catalonian city. This spontaneity is in contrast with the so called battle he has fought. Anywhere in the world, travelers like Robert Kruzdlo, who move from town to town, from country to country, are strangers. Those strangers see things differently than the people who have embraced Girona as their hometown. Kruzdlo’s drawings symbolize conciliation.

With this exposition Robbert Kruzdlo wants to express his fascination for the absolute completeness of things, but also for the quantity of things. On his Dutch web log he calls this the QUAQUANTITY of things, which comprises everything inside yourself as well as everything outside yourself. Together they form the quaquantity of life. In his work, Kruzdlo responds to this abstract creation, and all the drawings in this exposition are the result of that. The countenances you see, are human faces translated by Kruzdlo onto a piece of paper, which in all his complexity and confusion, have turned into an almost Rembrandt-like piece of art. They are part of something bigger, something greater, the world, life, the quaquantity.

It seems as if Robbert Kruzdlo has started another project already, because time seems to be pushing him. He has probably got a new set of countenances, waiting to be exhibited to the public, as is happening here right now. For that I want to thank you. It’s always exciting when artists get to show their work in foreign countries, and I sincerely hope that many artistic exchanges will follow. Art is a universal language, it is mondaine. Or, as Robbie Kruzdlo puts it: ‘The more things change, the more everything stays the same’.

Boy from France with objects Robert Kruzdlo Cemboing France 1998

The Impossible Meaning of Art

Yesterday I was at an exhibition opening in the library of the city New York. I`ve assisted more than a thousand art exhibition openings in more than thirty countries and twenty different languages.

The people at an art exhibition opening are everywhere the same, but they are also different!

People want to be different, they willingly try to achieve this anywhere because, they don´t want to look alike, which again makes the art loving public similar to each other.

Everyone thinks differently about art and these various philosophical art treatises, and they like to share these reflections with each other so it seems that... this is also a recognizable world.
One prefers to behave without striking features and or art historical views, and if they are still there, they will be quickly smoothed or straightened for the love of beauty.

Art unites people, it doesn´t pulls them apart.

Everyone is exited. They cuddle each other, and sometimes, or more often, they are so hilarious about an achievement, that it looks like a play whereat nobody bothers themselves. You hear cooing, giggling, embellishing, whispering, chatting, eating and drinking.

Art-tasting and drinking is fun when pieces are sold, even more fun… when there is ´nothing´ sold.

Everyone that was present, was an artist, and not every artist produces good work.

There were even artists, who had never made a piece of art. Therefore they have artwork at home, from someone who had thought in the past: "Oh, let´s make something".

What was left unsold, when everybody was already on his way home, is also taken home with a non-suppressed disappointment. The maker will take another critical look at it, or maybe not...?

Therefore he, the last art-maker, seems to me, the happiest of all.

2012 New York

@R.Kruzdlo

Drawing girl from Portbou 2012 Spain Robert Kruzdlo

Art et Amicitiae Amsterdam 2020