Jan Albers describes his work as a kind of self-observation in action: ‘The great art is to experience yourself in the act of doing. The more varied the actions are, the more you learn about yourself.’

This attitude lies at the heart of his work. It is insight through action, artistic exploration without a fixed route, a continuous process of experience. Beauty, it seems, is not a goal for Albers, but a solution. Something that can arise from the work itself.

In this exhibition, strength meets softness, wildness meets sensitivity. As the exhibition title suggests, the work oscillates between opposites: ‘tender’ and ‘tantrum’ – delicacy and outburst. These are interwoven in a formal language that allows for both emotional depth and conceptual rigour.

What emerges is the expression of a dynamic, often contradictory process: a performative exploration of material, form and action. Albers‘ relief works are performative settings, less objects than traces of an action. They are the expression of an intellectual and emotional, sometimes even spiritual process. It is not just about form, but about experience: erosion, friction, doubt, pain, happiness, curiosity. It takes courage to seek out the unfinished, to endure failure and inability, and even to use them as a springboard to the next level. The choice of materials is part of this search – open and sensual. What emerges remains open to interpretation: it is not uncommon for a work to only take shape or shift when viewed. It is not so much about realising a design, as about exploring a path.

The bronze objects form a contrast to this. Bronze requires planning, precision and technical control. Spontaneous decisions are not possible here – and yet Albers creates contrasts here too: in the fountain sculpture ‘riseandfaLL’, a jet of water – soft and ephemeral – hits hard metal. The fleeting encounters the solid, movement meets stasis. The meeting between fleeting movement and heavy material is more than a visual gesture: it refers to a central motif in Albers‘ work – the productive coexistence of seemingly incompatible elements.

This attitude is also evident in the cardboard works. Loosely fixed with clamps, they convey something temporary and vulnerable. They appear like architectural fragments of thought, deliberately light, almost unstable, revealing the fragile balance with which Albers plays, his scepticism towards permanence, but also his constantly rebalancing awareness of form. At the same time, they display a high degree of formal concentration – restrained, but precise. The artist himself describes them as his personal ‘Homage to a Square’ – not as a quotation, but as a further development of an idea.

Jan Albers once again emphasises his unique position as a contemporary “picture builder” – an artist who thinks radically, reacts sensitively to the world, works with his whole body and understands material as both a resistance and a collaborator.