Utrecht Lokaal: An Alternative History According to Dirkje Kuik and Philipp Gufler

Discover the varied work of Utrecht artist Dirkje Kuik, alongside Philipp Gufler’s Quilts. In an Alternative History According to Dirkje Kuik and Philipp Gufler, a wide selection of Kuik’s drawings, etchings, lithographs and paintings inspired by Utrecht is on display. Commissioned by the museum, artist Philipp Gufler (Augsburg, 1989) created a Quilt – a screen-printed fabric work – about Kuik’s life. It forms part of a series in which Gufler depicts artists, writers, an LGBTQI+ magazine and queer spaces that have disappeared. Subjects include Johann Joachim Winckelmann, Wies Smals and the magazine Die Freundin. These Quilts are on view in the exhibition. Another History opens on 18 January, during celebrations marking the seventieth anniversary of LGBTQI+ advocacy organisation COC Midden-Nederland.

Dirkje Kuik

Dirkje Kuik lived and worked in Utrecht all her life. Kuik’s work is imbued with a longing for the past. In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, Utrecht was rapidly modernising, but Kuik preferred an old city and created one herself in her work. This romantic, crumbling city was where she liked to live—not a city being razed to make way for modernisation. A widely read writer of novels and essays, she won the Multatuli Prize, among other awards. In 1960, she founded the printmaking collective De Luis with J.H. Moesman (1909–1988) and Henc van Maarseveen (1926–2012). She was a central figure in Utrecht’s art scene.

Philipp Gufler

Kuik’s work is flanked by Quilts made by the artist Philipp Gufler (Augsburg, 1989). In this series of works, Gufler explores artists, writers, an LGBTQI+ magazine and queer spaces that have disappeared. In doing so, he pays homage to this other history, which he presents in the various layers of his Quilts. The subjects at the heart of Gufler’s Quilts are closely connected to his own life journey and artistic practice. Other History opened on 18 January 2020, during the celebration of the seventieth anniversary of the LGBTQI+ advocacy organisation COC Midden Nederland.