From 27 februari – To 4 april 2020
Apparently it is peculiar to the art of painting that anything can be said about it. With a validity that is mainly determined individually. How valid is, for example, the statement by the African-American painter Kerry James Marshall that a painting is always superior to the digital image, because it cannot crash, and moreover always remains connected to the life and commitment of the maker, whose personal touch on the canvas? How true is the claim that painting still refuses to enter the past forever?
What we can in fact establish is that artists are no longer just a painter, sculptor or draftsman. They are primarily visual artists, and then any medium can be used if the image requires it. The artist has increasingly become a generalist who cannot be limited to a specific medium and who can work outside the studio just as easily. The artist has become a flex worker who travels from residency to residency, from project to project and from research to research.
At the same time, the studio still appears to be the breeding ground where the artwork takes shape, where the medium seems to be “the message” again. For many, the studio is again the sanctuary where it is no longer just about “statement and accountability”, which does not mean that it is always about the answer to the question of what makes a work of art a work of art. That is a matter that is inextricably linked to what we call art.
What is meanwhile claimed in painting and how is that done? One person paints, the other makes objects and paints. Another makes installations and paints and does not see himself as a painter. And then there are also the painters who make performances or videos in addition to painting. Anyway, painters paint again and do not stare at their own navel: they open the window curiously and just as easily to our society, to global warming, multiculturalism, inclusiveness and emancipatory movements.
It is a permanent challenge for painting to constantly redefine itself. With the work of seven artists in THE PAINTING SHOW, tegenboschvanvreden wants to present different attitudes that each shed light on what painting could be at this time. Ricardo van Eyk considers himself a painter. His spatial “constructions” are inspired by the city as the carrier of traces of human presence. In a game that is as sweet as it is cheeky with paint and color, Vera Gülikers puts details from the work of “forgotten” or underexposed female artists from history against the modernist – and masculine – concept of the grid. Christopher Mahon’s practice is versatile and performative in his research into objects and their “behavior” in changing (social) contexts: stories and histories well up. Anna Ostoya’s work expresses the desire to break free from the classical representation of the human body. To represent the body in a state of being that is not determined by gender, race or age, it reconstructs the body in color and movement. Carole Vanderlinden paints and draws and presents us with images that are not directly involved in social affairs, but that sharpen looking and thinking through references to the history of art and culture. The gaze of Evi Vingerling seeks the sensuality of light and color behind the forms in which the world presents itself. In her work Anouk van Zwieten investigates the detail as pars pro toto for the greater whole. Personal memories and desires receive a universal charge in her expressive paintings.
Here are seven faces of contemporary painting in THE PAINTING SHOW.
“tegenboschvanvreden”
Contact
bloemgracht 57
1016 ke amsterdam
+31 [0]20 320 67 68
info@tegenboschvanvreden.com
www.tegenboschvanvreden.com
Opening hours
wednesday – saturday, 1 pm – 6 pm
