Unfortunately in May 2025 we had to move out of our location in Amsterdam Oost. This meant that a planned exhibition with Marieke Gelissen and Miku Sato at ps.kot had to be cancelled. This challenged us to think what ps in ps.kot means and to explore new possibilities of space. Therefore we invited Marieke and Miku to create a work for an advertisement space in De Witte Raaf. Get your free copy of De Witte Raaf #237 at your local projectspace, gallery or museum.
——
Black Frills marks the first collaboration between Amsterdam-based artists Marieke Gelissen and Miku Sato.
Invited by ps.kot to create a work for De Witte Raaf, a renowned art journal in Belgium and the Netherlands, the artists responded with a site-specific intervention that reconsiders the paper as more than a vehicle for critique.
The result is both sculptural and conceptual. A black square, sharply delineated with white lining, appears in the advertisement space of the issue, contrasting with the surrounding fields of text.
At first glance, it might be mistaken for a minimalist gesture. But embedded in the visual is a set of discreet instructions: an invitation to cut and fold. The thin paper, usually the passive carrier of discourse, becomes active. Those who dare to take scissors to the page are drawn into a playful, hands-on engagement with the work, as a flat image transforms into a three-dimensional object: black frills.
Inverting the function of the art journal, Black Frills disrupts passive reading and proposes a form of material literacy. It asks: what else can be done with the tools of publication? The result of the act, the black frill paper object, functions as an ornament for De Witte Raaf, the white raven, and suggests that it should be festively served.
This formal yet playful approach is rooted in the shared interests of the two artists: both are currently drawn to recipes and cookbooks. Gelissen focuses on the instructive language and imagery of culinary books and uses that as a starting point for performative explorations, while Sato’s video installation unravels the political and violent structures embedded in cooking publications. This collaboration also results the duo-exhibition ‘We Must Not Lift Knife to Mouth’ at Galerie Serieuze Zaken in Amsterdam, that opens on September 27th and runs until October 18th.
The publication was made possible by ps.kot, a rambling non-profit artist run project space for contemporary art in Amsterdam. The project space provides a stage for international and local artists to present their work. Artists are invited to experiment, to research and to react on the space and its (dis)position. In May 2025 the location of p.s. Kot had to close down. This did not mean the end of p.s. Kot, but was the start of an exploration of new forms and spaces. The publication with Gelissen and Sato in De Witte Raaf is the first project deriving from this new approach.
The contribution by Marieke and Miku is published on September 23rd, 2025, in edition 237 of De Witte Raaf. Free copies of De Witte Raaf are available at galleries and other distribution points (view list).
Text: Marieke Gelissen & Miku Sato