Krijn de Koning, Models: 17 November – 15 December 2012
Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Models by Dutch artist Krijn de Koning (*1963). It will open Saturday November 17 and will run until December 15.
Krijn de Koning deals with the question how we experience architectural space. Most of the time De Koning creates site-specific work that questions the specific characteristics of a given location. More than spatial interventions these works are homogenous structures that can best be defined as sculpture, but also incorporate the qualities of painting and architecture.
De Koning studied at the Ateliers 63 in Haarlem (NL) and institut des Hautes Etudes en Art Plastiques in Paris. He participated in many international exhibitions, such as the Art Triennial of Beaufort in Oostende (BE) in 2009. His work has been collected by several important private collections, such as the collection of Jean-Philippe & Françoise Billarant and public collections, such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and Centraal Museum in the Netherlands and the FNAC and FRACs in France. In December 2007 he received the prestigious Dutch Sikkens Prize in Rotterdam, also received by Donald Judd and Jan Dibbets. On this occasion a catalog had been published, giving an overview of more than 10 years of work. In 2010 he made a huge installation at the Nieuwe kerk in Amsterdam and in 2011 at Musée des Beaux–Arts de Nantes, including a new catalog entitled Vides pour un patio. Since 1996 his work has been represented by Slewe Gallery.
Martin Gerwers, Shifting from a Riff: 13 October – 10 November 2012
Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Shifting from a Riff by German artist Martin Gerwers. It opens Saturday October 13 and will run until November 10, 2012.
Martin Gerwers, emerged with monumental geometric abstract paintings. He has recently extended his dicipline with 3-dimensional painted objects. Made out of triangular forms from wood they take the shape of dynamic pyramids, which define the surrounding space. His work is in the tradition of Mondrian and the American colourfield painting. Gerwers’ paintings and objects evoke space through big contrasts in light and dark, thin lines and broad planes of color and subtle differences in tone.
Martin Gerwers is born in 1963 in Velen (DE). He lives and works in Düsseldorf. After the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he studied with Jan Dibbets, he exhibited regularly at Konrad Fischer Galerie in Düsseldorf and Galerie Tschudi in Glarus in Switserland. Since 1999 he has been exhibiting at Slewe Gallery. His work has been collected by several private and public institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Next year he will make an exhibition in the project room of the Gemeentemuseum The Hague.
Adam Colton, Cliffhanger: 8 September – 6 October 2012
Slewe Gallery is pleased to annouce the opening of the exhibition Cliffhanger by British sculptor Adam Colton (*1957). It will open on Saturday September 8 and will run until October 6, 2012.
After his show Love Arises from the Foam at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam and his solo exhibition at Slewe at Art Amsterdam in 2009, he continued developing his whitish organic shaped carvings in polyeruthane foam. Its result will be on show in relation with newly made drawings on paper. For this occasion he also made esepcially a wall drawing.
Colton makes mostly objects of polyurethane foam. They lie on the floor or hang against the wall. He calls them ‘blobs’. His career started in the early eighties with plaster constructions made of his own leg. His work developed through geometric stone and wood carvings towards organic shaped carvings in the artificial material of polyeruthan foam, which he gives a natural feeling by sanding and painting them in an off whitish color. At the same time he still occupies himself with sculptural principles as volume, space and weight. The practise of drawing is an underlying study for all his works. The expanding process of the initial drawing to a 3-dimensional object is essential for the outcome of the work.
Colton was born in 1957 in Manchester (GB). Since 1981 he lives and works in the Netherlands. After his study at the Ateliers 63 in Haarlem he had his first solo show at Art & Project in Amsterdam in 1983. He had several museum shows in the Netherlands, at the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Commanderie van St.Jan in Nijmegen, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede and Gemeentemuseum The Hague. In 2001 he had a solo show at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam.
For more information please contact the gallery.
Steven Aalders, Spectrum: 12 May – 16 June 2012
The laws of the colors are unutterably beautiful, just because they are not accidental.
— citation from letter 450 by Vincent van Gogh to his brother Theo, June 1884
Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition Spectrum by Steven Aalders (*1959, NL) from May 12 to June 16, 2012. It will comprise new series of paintings with the spectrum as subject. One is a six-panelled work of which each panel is painted in one of the six colors of the spectrum and serves as a background for another spectral range of 12 colors. In relation to their background these colors change in perception according to the principles of interaction of colors. As a motto for this exhibition Aalders chose the above mentioned fragment from a letter of Van Gogh, in which Vincent evokes his belief in a scientific approach of painting.
Aalders, who has been reflecting on artists of the past and who has been investigating color schemes of various masters, old and modern, moves with these new series towards pure abstraction, by taking color itself as a subject. The exhibition comprises also a group of small new works with a new motif on which Aalders worked during his residency at the Josef Albers Foundation in the United States last Summer.
Aalders, known for his carefully hand painted geometric abstract oil paintings, evokes the history of modern abstraction, reverting to the origins of Constructivism and Minimal Art. His work is an attempt to embody the essence, to create light and space through paint. Modernist serial principles such as repetition and sameness are both connected to older traditions in Western art and Eastern abstract art. The multi layered oil paintings demand a concentrated eye of the beholder.
Steven Aalders, born in 1959 in Middelbug (NL), lives and works in Amsterdam. He studied in London at Croydon College of Art and at Ateliers 63 in Haarlem (NL). In 2002 he had a solo exhibition at the S.M.A.K. in Ghent in Belgium. A catalog with texts by Jan Hoet snd Pietje Tegenbosch was published at the same time. In 2010 his exhibition Cardinal Points at the Gemeentemuseum The Hague opened, on which occasion a catalog was published with an overview of 15 years work, with texts by Benno Tempel, Rudi Fuchs, Thomas Lange and Steven Aalders himself. Last year he had an exhibition at De Ketelfactory entitled For Philip Guston. His work has been internationally collected by both private and public collections such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, AKZO Nobel Art Foundation, Caldic Collection and Museum Kurhaus Kleve (DE).
Jerry Zeniuk: 31 March – 5 May 2012
Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition with new paintings by Jerry Zeniuk (*1945, US) on Saturday March 31. The exhibition has been installed by Rudi Fuchs and will last until May 5, 2012.
Color is essential in the painting of Jerry Zeniuk. According to Zeniuk colors are not only carriers of emotion, but their interaction reflects social and human relationships in general as well. His recent canvases use different colored circles or dots or forms to create color interactions that create a specific pictorial space. They float on a whitish colored or raw canvas, but suggest space that is occupied with a retain light. The edges of these dots are in some cases sharp, in other vague and atmospheric. They are brought into a harmonious equilibrium and have a strong spatial effect. 'Beauty', philosophically and visually, is the ultimate goal in the paintings.
Zeniuk became known in the seventies, when he participated at the Fundamental Painting show in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1975. Since then his paintings developed from a monochrome plane, in which several colored layers have been put on top of each other, towards compositions of contrasting color planes next to each other. Born in 1945 in Bardowick (DE), as a son of Ukrain refugees, he emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1950, where he grew up in Colorado. After his study he moved to New York, where he had his first exhibition. Since the seventies he stayed regularly in Germany, participating in several exhibitions. Now he is living in Munich and he is regularly showing at Konrad Fischer Galerie in Düsseldorf and Berlin, and at Annemarie Verna in Zürich. From 1992 to 2010 he had been teaching at the Akademie der Bildende Künste in Munich. In 1999 he had an overview of his work at the Museum Lenbachhaus in Munich, Kunstmuseum Winterthur (CH) and Kunstmuseum Kassel, on which occasion a comprehensive catalogue had been published. In 2004 he had an overview of his water colors at the Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. In May 2012 an exhibition of his works will open at the Museum Augsburg. In 2013/2014 an exhibition is planned at Museum Wiesbaden.
During the exhibition an interview with the artist will be made and shown as a video through vimeo on the website. This will be the fifth in the series of artists’ interviews, which art critic Robert-Jan Muller is making for the gallery.
Kees Smits: 18 February – 24 March 2012
Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition with new works by the Dutch artist Kees Smits (*1945). The exhibition will open Saturday February 18 and will last until March 24.
Smits’s abstract geometric paintings deal with how one experience different perspective in the flat Dutch landscape. He tries to catch the panoramic view of the Dutch landscape in different perspectives. Both in his long horizontal works, which can consist of different sizes of canvases, and in his narrow vertical works he focuses on a literal perspective experience in viewing the space. Smits’ preoccupation with perspective on a flat plane goes back to the experiments of Russian constructivists such as El Lissitsky. His love for Malevich the way his paintings have been organized. Also in the use of bright and contrastful colors there ia a connection with the pioneer of abstract art.
During the exhibition an interview with the artist will be made and shown as a video through vimeo on internet. This will be the fourth in the series of artists’ interviews, which art critic Robert-Jan Muller will make for the gallery.
Kees Smits lives and works in Amsterdam. He became known as an artist at the time he participated at the Fundamental Painting show in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1979. Since then his paintings have been shown regularly. In 1994 he had an overview of his works in the Centraalmuseum Utrecht, on which occasion also a catalog had been published. Smits has been showing at Slewe Gallery on a regular base since 1995.
Michael Jacklin, The Hang Series: 7 January – 11 February 2012
Slewe Gallery is pleased to announce the opening The Hang Series, an exhibition with new works by the Dutch sculptor Michael Jacklin (*1956). The exhibition will open Saturday January 7 and will last until February 11.
Jacklin, known for his man-sized grid sculptures, made of iron, will exhibit a new series of wall objects, entitled The Hang Series, in which transparent boxes of thin staff iron are hanging in each other. They follow his previous series wall sculptures Stack, in which the principle of stacking was its subject. Also in these series a subtle play of lines and intervals occurs when you move around them.
Jacklin is one of the rare fundamental working sculptors of his generation. He focuses on the specific qualities of the material as well as on the sculptural principles such as mass, rhythm and gravity. Since 1984 he works exclusively with iron. His preference for this material derives from his fascination for iron constructions in architecture.
Michael Jacklin exhibits at Slewe Gallery on a regular base since 1995. In 2010 Slewe published a catalog with an overview of his work and a text by Maarten Bertheux. In 2002 he had an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and in 2000 he had a show at the Kunstvereniging Diepenheim. His works have been collected by several public and private collections. He has also done several public commissions in Rotterdam and Amstelveen. Jacklin lives and works in Amsterdam.