27 june 2023, Wouter van den Eijkel
Summer in the City
It is already scorching hot and the school year is drawing to a close. In other words, the summer holiday is just around the corner. Traditionally, this is the time of year when galleries schedule group exhibitions. In this first overview of the summer shows, three galleries are taking advantage of the summer to debut new artists.
Summer in the City | Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
Wouter Van Leeuwen is concluding his first year in a much larger and new space on Hazenstraat with his annual Summer in the City show. No overarching theme this year, but a new name: Thomas Manneke. What makes his debut so remarkable is that his latest book, Mutatio (2020), met with international praise, which oddly enough did not result in a (permanent) representation at a Dutch gallery. So, it is fantastic that Van Leeuwen has offered Manneke a platform.
Thomas Manneke, Laurie with Ladder, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
While Mutatio toyed with optical illusions in public space, Manneke and his daughter Laurie (aged 12) have been working for the past three years on still lifes with cardboard boxes, strings and folded papers. His work is reminiscent of Achter Glas and Wij zijn 17. The eight barite prints in Summer in the City turn out to be merely a foretaste, as an exhibition curated by Willem van Zoetendaal will follow at Wouter van Leeuwen in the autumn, featuring work by Manneke, Harold Strak and vintage prints by Johan van der Keuken.
Vanessa Winship, Amish Horse and Carriage, Ohio, USA, 2019, Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen
There’s also a stellar line up featuring Vanessa Winship, Jakob Aue Sobol, Mimi Plumb, Marie-José Jongerius and Jenia Fridlyand. Summer in the City runs through 26 August at Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen.
Things That Take Time | TORCH Gallery
Torch Gallery’s manager Jorre Both selected seven artists from the new online platform The Pool for their debut this summer. The only 'old-timer' is Krijn Kroes, but he graduated only three years ago. Both comments, “There are so many good artists, but as a gallery, we simply cannot show everyone. This is a good way to solve that dilemma.”
Arthur Cordier, AC.2022.03. Bon appétit silverware, 2022, TORCH Gallery
Both's choice for what is called slow art in the press release was a good one because Things That Take Time is a playful and varied overview of this group of graduates. The work of francophone Belgian Arthur Cordier (1993) is based on the world of advertising, but it is hard to tell. Cordier uses the tarpaulin of trucks as a canvas and modifies it to create abstract compositions. His work is a large-scale exploration of the aesthetics of bureaucracy and entrepreneurship.
Diana Gheorghiu, Super Confident, 2021, TORCH Gallery
Like Cordier, Diana Gheorghiu graduated from the KABK in The Hague. In her digital works, Gheorghiu addresses the themes of self-care, the wellness industry and new food fads. In the triptych Super Confident, a girl, lying on the couch, looks at an adult Kardashian-like woman in a white mask. She literally and figuratively looks up to her. On the shelves behind her are a kettle bell and all kinds of superfoods.
Sunwoo Jung, Kusama, 2023, TORCH Gallery
The brand-new Rietveld graduate Sunwoo Jung (South Korea, 1991) makes ceramic miniatures of chairs, not based on well-known models, but fictional shapes. Some are reminiscent of Memphis design of the 1980s. This also explains a lot. Like in Memphis, Jung's designs are a reckoning with our desire for efficiency and comfort. If her designs were to be executed, they would be anything but comfortable. To quote Rietveld, whose designs did not excel in seating comfort, “to sit is a verb”. Jung's miniatures deviate from Memphis or Rietveld design in one area: price. Jung produces her chairs in an open edition for only 125 euros.
Sunwoo Jung, Bobby, 2023, TORCH Gallery
Things That Take Time with work by Arthur Cordier, Daan Russcher, Diana Gheorghiu, Elise Van Staveren, Krijn Kroes, Luke McCowan, Melle Aussems and Sunwoo Jung can be seen at Torch until 29 July.
Sources of Wonder | Galerie Fleur & Wouter
Sources of Wonder is a group show featuring all the elements that make Galerie Fleur & Wouter's programming so popular. In Sources of Wonder, there is also a lot of attention to the creative process, colour is not avoided and something ritual or spiritual is never far away. “In the case of Saar Scheerlings, viewers often project something of that nature on to her work. Carmen Schabracq’s work involves considerable research into rituals in her masks and the work of Dodi (Espinosa, ed.) is virtually made up of ritual objects,” says gallerist Wouter van Herwaarden.
Saar Scheerlings, Talisman, 2023, Galerie Fleur & Wouter
Sources of Wonder also marks the gallery debut of Belgian-Dutch artist Warre Mulder (1984), whose work aligns perfectly with the programming of Fleur and Wouter because it also entails a search for spirituality and animism, but across all times and cultures. In There will be new Gods, the forgotten deity Neptune waterskies into the 21st century on two Chinese-looking monsters. Mulder became interested in Neptune due to 16th and 17th-century maps on which the sea god invariably appears, mounted on a sea monster in places that were still unknown.
Warre Mulder, There Will Be New Gods, 2022, Galerie Fleur & Wouter
In addition to a playful combination of past and present, Mulder's work also has something pure about it. “As a child, I would be so engrossed in play that I considered my toys to be alive. That is the basis of my work. My work must have a kind of spirit, of purity. You can see that in the ceramics, a material that invariably features traces of the creation process. In this case, it is matte glazed, which makes it look like processed wood.”
Sources of Wonder with work by Dodi Espinosa, Warre Mulder, Sharon van Overmeiren, Carmen Schabracq and Saar Scheerlings can be seen at Galerie Fleur & Wouter until 29 July.
