I just feel at home here

Retrospective exhibition of the private collection of artist, musician, author, poet and dramatist Armando (Amsterdam, 18-09-1929 – Potsdam, 01-07-2018) who in 50 years collected almost 400 works on paper from 140 artists. He donated this entire collection to the Chabot Museum Rotterdam. Up until his death in July 2018 Armando continued to buy works of art that found their way to the Chabot Museum. ‘I just feel at home here’ said the artist on one of his visits to the museum.

The collection is made publicly available on collectie.chabotmuseum.nl

ARMANDO’S LEGACY

The artist Armando was known for being multitalented. He can be regarded as one of the Netherlands‘ most famous post­war artists. As a writer, poet, dramatist, violinist and visual artist he has left behind an impressive oeuvre. His child­hood experiences during the Second World War in the vicinity of Kamp Amersfoort play a key role in every discipline. Armando’s view of the world depicts universal themes such as destruction, war and peace, but also the beauty of evil and man‘s relationship with his (violent) fellow man with intensity.

It is less well known that Armando was also a collector of art. He chose these works because they made him ‘greedy‘. He had a great affection
for works on paper: ‘A good drawing. That is what I call beauty‘. But as
his oeuvre shows us even beauty is not quite right, bearing in mind his
‘guilty landscape‘.

The collection covers 50 years of collecting and comprises almost 400 works from more than 140 contemporary artists. He donated all of this extensive collection to the Chabot Museum. Some sections of this collection have been shown earlier in the Teylers Museum and De Vishal in Haarlem (1999) and in the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (2007). The donation to the Chabot Museum was initially presented in Huis Schuylenburch in The Hague, the official residence of the German Ambassador to the Netherlands (2017).

All you really need to be an artist is paper and a pencil. Just a few lines on a surface can represent a world of your own and the imagination can take over. According to Armando this is what he discovered when he saw drawings by Antoon Derkzen van Angeren (Chabot‘s teacher) in the hall of his high school in Baarn.

For the first time this exhibition will show almost the entire donation of
works on paper (first and second floors). Up until his death in July 2018
Armando continued to buy works of art that found their way to the Chabot Museum. ‘I just feel at home here‘ said the artist on one of his visits to the museum.

Also on show are ethnographic sculptures from his bequest that were set up in his apartment in Amstelveen ‘to banish evil spirits, but it doesn‘t work‘ and which formed what he called ‘the tram stop‘. It is as if they are also watching and refer to all the other people who influenced and inspired Armando in his life and work and to the many people who have been influenced and inspired by Armando.