Guest curator Jeroen van Paassen had the noble intention to create a group exhibition about our pets in contemporary art. The Zaanse curator, who is known for his more provocative exhibitions, felt like a 'holiday' exhibition in NO ART FASHION in Roggel. An innocent exhibition in beautiful Limburg.

As the various works of art were selected, a different image emerged
float to the top. The assembled exhibition not only offered insight into how pets or better domesticated animals are represented in contemporary art. But more questions our capacity for genuine love. And in particular the question: 'are we able to love a living being, if it is not leashed, caged or provides us with any use. Is love a prison? Is marriage a kind of cage obligation?

Not only artists from Limburg/the EUR region have been selected for the exhibition, but also from various other regions. Such as Henriette van Gasteren and Raphäel Hermans from Limburg, Claudia Breuer and Gerhard Günther from Aachen, Teppo Korte from Finland and Mari Terauchi from Japan. Laura van Dijk, Erik Sok and Jasmine de Vries come from the Zaanstreek. Evelien de Jong from Rotterdam also shows her work.

Claudia Breuer
Alienating is the right word for the work of Breuer from Aachen. In NO ART FASHION a large video is shown, in which her dog plays the leading role. In addition, she shows all kinds of stuffed animals, from chicks to cockroaches.

Laura van Dijk
Van Dijk is known for her installations, in which objects from our daily environment are transformed into poetic reflections. In Roggel she shows a kind of puppet theatre, in which the relationship between terraced houses and animal cages is exposed.

Henriette van Gasteren
According to a prestigious international photo art magazine, Van Gasteren is among the world's top 10 photographers of self-nude portraits. During this exhibition, a photo can be seen, among other things, that was taken in a Limburg butcher's shop in Reuven.

Gerhard Günther
The figurative painter from Aachen was born in East Berlin (GDR). The scenes of his works are always set in the urban environment, in which he questions our relationship with nature and our nature. They often evoke the atmosphere of a melancholic longing for freedom in the middle of a concrete suburbia.

Evelien de Jong
In De Jong's recent work, humans as space travelers are central. Or as she calls them 'Enzonauts'. Of course, our faithful four-legged friend cannot be missed during these space journeys. Neatly leashed with a tracker, imagine if he runs away.

Teppo Short
Finnish artist Korte has grown up with dogs his entire life. A life without a dog is unthinkable for him. Specially for this exhibition he creates new light boxes, in which people and dogs are central.

Erik Sok
The versatile artist Sok shows a kind of model of a pig flat in Roggel. Stimulating and provocative, the work challenges the viewer.

Mari Terauchi
Japanese Terauchi is simultaneously showing her works from the series 'Woher komen wir?' (Where do we come from?) in Germany and Limburg. Lifelike chickens and pigs emerge from the assemblage of meat packaging.

Jasmine de Vries
Photographer De Vries brings the whole theme together in her SM-like scenes, in which people parade through the streets of Amsterdam with their partner dressed as a dog. Being kept on a string takes on a new meaning.

Henrique van Putten
Henrique van Putten (1977) uses textile images and drawings to create stories about the contradictions we experience in the world and in ourselves and how we deal with them as humans. She uses all kinds of animals to do this, which perceive life in the world and unfold experiences about holding on and letting go, fear and surrender, certainty and doubt, dissatisfaction and harmony. With her visual work, she translates these findings into contemporary fables, as it were. The colorful and soft animals depict our human feelings and experiences and give the sometimes difficult reality something endearing, hopeful and bearable.


'Faithful Companion'
The artist is a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam. He ...