01 march 2022, Flor Linckens
Some highlights at Art Island
This weekend (3 to 5 March) you will have a unique opportunity to admire the work of dozens of artists at a World Heritage location: the fortified Fort Island in IJmuiden. The booths of the new Art Island art fair will be set up in a protected 19th century underground corridor system, which means that you certainly won’t have a white cube-like experience. The fair was started by the gallerist duo Brinkman & Bergsma. On GalleryViewer you will find an online catalogue with an overview of the exhibited works and in this article we highlight a number of remarkable works of art that will be on display.
Hadassah Emmerich,Crimson Mirror, 2022, tegenboschvanvreden
In the booth of Tegenboschvanvreden you will spot two works by the Dutch artist Hadassah Emmerich, who interweaves a multitude of subjects in her large-scale paintings, drawings and installations. These often relate to the ways in which the female body — and the body of a woman of colour in particular — is viewed by society. She focuses on themes like female identity, psychology, exoticism and the male gaze. Her works are characterised by organic shapes in deep colours. Emmerich selects the materials for her practice from various sources, including vintage photography books, texts, advertising and art historical reference works. These materials are fused together through a photomontage process and then transferred to the canvas. Sometimes in oil paint, sometimes in a combination of painting and printing. Emmerich studied at the prestigious Goldsmiths Institute in London, among others, and her work was purchased for the collections of institutes such as Museum Voorlinden, Kunstmuseum Den haag, Bonnefantenmuseum, Rabobank and the Centraal Museum.
Hreinn Friðfinnsson, By the Waterfall, 2019-2022, EENWERK
EENWERK, the gallery that is known for exhibiting a single work at a time, presents a work by one of Iceland's most cherished artists: Hreinn Friðfinnsson. This artist is the mentor of artists such as Ólafur Elíasson, who has called him a great hero for Iceland. Friðfinnsson's art is lyrical and playful, but it is also marked by a certain grim poetry, which transcends the mundaneness and modesty of his materials and subjects. It is difficult to pin down the conceptual artist's work, both in terms of content and form. He makes extensive use of found objects, which he combines in surprising ways, but to which he adds as little as possible on an individual level. Friðfinnsson works in a multitude of disciplines, including photography, drawing, sculpture and installation. He is inspired by folklore, nature, dreams, time, literature and the supernatural. The result is marked by humour and double meanings. In 1993, Friðfinnsson represented his homeland at the 45th Venice Biennale and his work has also been shown at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Serpentine Gallery in London and the KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin. For this installation, Friðfinnsson used, among other things, a steel mirror and a stromatolite, a stratified sedimentary rock consisting of lime and fossil cyanobacteria that are millions of years old, and were once an important source of oxygen. The crystal balls on the floor refer to myths, but also to optics, the field of physics that focuses on the behaviour of light.
Pentti Sammallahti, Houston, Texas, USA, 1998, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen shows work by a number of photographers, including Pentti Sammallahti: one of the most prominent photographers in Finland. His photos are characterised by an aesthetic that we associate with Scandinavia, a simplicity that is combined with a specific type of humour. Sammallahti was the grandson of journalistic photographer Hildur Larsson, which meant that his love for photography started at a young age. He traveled all over the world for his work, from Nepal, Siberia and Morocco to Japan and South Africa. This photograph was made in Houston, Texas. Animals often play a central role in his images, especially dogs. He is particularly fascinated by the relationship between humans and animals. You can find his work in the collections of the V&A in London, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Stedelijk in Amsterdam.
