De Nieuwe Beeldkrant ·
Ilse Krohn and the long argument with the surface
There is a temptation, standing in front of these panels, to describe them as quiet. Ravenstein resists it, and argues that Krohn's method is closer to an argument that has been going on for eleven years.
Writing in De Nieuwe Beeldkrant, Femke Ravenstein reviews Slow Weather at Hazenstraat and takes issue with the vocabulary that has accumulated around Ilse Krohn’s work.
Ravenstein’s central point is that the language of quietness and contemplation, which she notes has appeared in almost every text on Krohn since 2018, gets the paintings backwards. What is actually happening on these panels is a sustained disagreement between a hand that wants to leave a mark and a ground designed to refuse one, conducted over months and settled only by exhaustion.
She is good on the conservation background, which she treats as method rather than biography, and sharp about the titles, which she reads as the weakest part of the exhibition.
The full review appeared in the June 2026 issue.