25 august 2023, Flor Linckens
The fifth edition of Enter Art Fair in Copenhagen
Today, Enter Art Fair (25-27 August) for contemporary art officially opens its doors to the public in the large-scale Lokomotivværkstedet (Locomotive Workshop) in Copenhagen. Enter Art Fair is Scandinavia's largest international art fair and during this fifth edition, you can view work in the booths of 88 galleries from 22 countries. Together, they present a multitude of media, from paintings, sculptures and video to ceramics and digital art. Four of these galleries are affiliated with GalleryViewer: PLUS-ONE Gallery, Galerie Caroline O'Breen, Galerie Gerhard Hofland and Rademakers Gallery.
Rademakers Gallery presents a colourful group exhibition with twelve artists that the gallery works with: Joana Schneider, Jessi Strixner, Leonie Schneider, Anne Mei Poppe, Yamuna Forzani, Sebiha Demir, Kamila Sipika, Stefan Gross, Martijn Hesseling, Chris Rijk, Jorge Mañes Rubio and Vic de Groot. The presentation includes, for example, a basketball covered with delicate glass beads by the Spanish artist Jorge Mañes Rubio, whose work explores humanity's relationship with the universe. The artist plays with the contrast between materiality and immateriality and delves deeper into how certain intangible emotions and memories can be tangibly manifested, felt and activated. His work was previously shown at the V&A and the Royal Academy in London, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul and La Triennale di Milano, among others.
In the booth you can also see work by the German artist Joana Schneider, who specialises in the reuse of old fishing nets and ropes. She combines these materials with traditional and modern techniques and recycled yarn made from PET bottles. Her works are about sustainability and craftsmanship while challenging gender norms at the same time. Recent sources of inspiration are the Polly Pocket toy series and at Enter Art Fair she will also be showing her latest work "Vanilla Garden". Her work has previously been shown at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, among others. Tip: ask if you can take a look in a secret room in the booth.
PLUS-ONE Gallery from Antwerp is showing works by Sergio De Beukelaer, Judit Kristensen, Laurens Legiers, Mevlana Lipp, William Ludwig Lutgens and Victor Verhelst. The mysterious paintings of the Swedish artist Judit Kristensen seem to move between autobiographical elements and a dream world, charged with a certain existential tension, undoubtedly enhanced by the use of colour and light. For some stylistic elements, Kristensen is inspired by the work of iconic Scandinavian artists such as Edvard Munch and Vilhelm Hammershøi.
The German artist Mevlana Lipp is inspired by the magical beauty, purity and cruelty of the natural world, which he stylises as a metaphor for human emotions and experiences. In black and neon colours he expresses, for instance, the complex ways in which organisms communicate and are connected. In It's Nice That he states: "For me, [nature] symbolises our emotions and experiences beyond the limitations of our conscious mind.”
Galerie Caroline O'Breen shows work by two Dutch artists at the fair: Bart Lunenburg and Jaya Pelupessy. Lunenburg's multidisciplinary practice focuses on architecture (and its history), urban design and architectural heritage. He looks at buildings and cities as entities that (could) have their own memory and he works with photography, video and spatial installations, among other things. Lunenburg previously showed his work at Atelier NŌUA in Norway, Fotografiska in Stockholm, Kunsthal KAdE and Museum Catharijneconvent and he was nominated for the Foam Paul Huf Award (2021).
Pelupessy investigates the influence of photography on our perception of reality. He invites us to reflect on how images are made and understood, by analysing and deconstructing them and by using historical reproduction techniques in different ways. For "Manufactured Manual", he manipulates a combination of archive photos and his own photographs using contemporary technology — emphasizing the construction of the image. Pelupessy's work has been exhibited in institutions including the Centraal Museum, the Tropenmuseum, Red Hook Labs in New York and FOAM Amsterdam. He was selected as one of the Foam Talents in 2019 and since 2020, his work has been part of the Gallery of Honour of Dutch Photography at the Netherlands Photo Museum.
Galerie Gerhard Hofland shows work by Janine van Oene and Jacqueline Peeters at the fair. It is nearly impossible to look at the work of Dutch artist Janine van Oene without trying to distinguish a recognisable object in the image. When you stand in front of her paintings, associations arise with flowers, plants, body parts, animals or even garments — apparently executed in a single, confident movement. Still, you probably won't be able to put your finger on it. The painter invites the viewer to make free associations, although her images, structures and colour combinations often refer to existing shapes and objects in the real world. She finds her inspiration in nature or architecture, but also in the form of old books or antique crockery from a second-hand shop. Van Oene's work has been included in the collections of De Nederlandsche Bank, KMPG, the Royal Dutch Collections, the ING Art Collection and AkzoNobel and she received several awards, including the Buning Brongers Prize (2014), the Royal Award for Modern Painting (2017) and the Jeanne Oosting Prize (2020).
Despite the fact that Jacqueline Peeters won a Royal Award for Modern Painting early in her career, she was initially unable to secure representation by a gallery. In the mid-1990s, her works took a different, more conceptual direction. She painted over old canvases and gave them titles such as "Unsold painting no. 443". Peeters also paints price lists and in her canvases, she might refer to the state of works in storage, the names of fictional gallery owners and the floors of the galleries where she would like to exhibit her work. In doing so, Peeters criticises the art world, its arbitrariness and the unwritten (economic) laws that apply there. Yet the works are playful and ironic rather than sarcastic or cynical. In fact, they form the starting point for a personal investigation, including into her personal family tree.
