2016-12-25

6516 - 20170304 - Puls Contemporary Ceramics - Brussel - Wauter Dam & Jongjin Park - 14.01.2017-04.03.2017

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Wouter Dam (The Netherlands- 1957) After an absence of almost four years, Wouter Dam is returning to Puls bringing with him a series of new sculptures named Cornucopia’s. This latest work has evolved from the desire to bring the sculpture “upwards”, creating an elevated form which allows the viewer to look ‘through’ rather than ‘at’ the work.
Included in the show are his radiant coloured wall hangings, each placed against a contrasting background to frame the piece and to make it ‘pop’. While sizeable these curvy works appear light and airy as if they could be ruffled or blown away by wind.

In Dam’s work all emphasis is on form. His signature assemblage of different thrown pieces and added slabs has over the years become more complex. Despite appearances, one can still trace back the making process to the potter’s wheel. With this new work he has almost separated each element of the traditional vessel to reassemble as a sculpture.

Dam graduated from The Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 1980. It was there where he began this exploration of shape and volume, which continues to fascinate him today.

Dam’s work is exhibited internationally and is included in numerous collections including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Detroit Institute of Art.


Jongjin Park (South Korea -1982) investigates the remarkable ability of ceramics to deceive the eye. By experimenting with layering paper and porcelain slip, he has created giant millefeuilles which are at once delicate, strong and have an almost wood-like quality. In using fragile paper and ‘hard’ porcelain slip, he’s is able to manipulate your senses and makes you wonder what is real

Park already had a strong foundational knowledge of ceramic properties and techniques, when he decided to integrate the use of paper into his ceramic work. He was looking for ways to make ceramic imitate other materials. The sculptural forms he creates are full of vulnerability and duplicity, and hover between the spontaneous and the deliberate. The colours he uses add another dimension of surprise to the texture: soft pastels, shady greys and whites and cobalt blues make for a delicious feast as if these pieces are edible after all.

Born in Korea Park received his MA in Ceramics at Cardiff Metropolitan University, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Ceramics at Kookmin University, Seoul. His exhibitions include the Santorini Biennale of Arts, Santorini, Greece, R.E.D, Arton gallery, Singapore, Ceramic Museum, Korea and the 7th Cheongju International Craft Competition in 2011 for which he was awarded the Gold Prize.
 
Puls Contemporary Ceramics
Address
Edelmknaapstraat 19
1050 Brussel
 
Opening hours
Wednesday up until Saturday  13h - 18h
 
 
 


2016-12-20

2016-12-15

6500 - 20170318 - Begramoff Gallery - Brussel - Waves - 30.01.2017-18.03.2017

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The exhibition ' WAVES ' speaks about Nature, about its undulations, about its breath and about its essential and inseparable balance of Human. This exhibition allows us to discover Michel Soucy's paintings as well as sculptures of Yolanda & H.

• Michel Soucy imagines landscapes and transfigures them, in an abstract and subtle way, in apparently monochrome paintings. These abstract landscapes drive us towards our own imagination (Truman Capote: ' the landscapes are windows on the imagination of the characters ').

Michel Soucy writes: "the landscapes are, for me, abstractions of the Nature. By painting them, I keep intrinsically the way I feel in front of the unspeakable: a colour, a texture, a movement translate a cloudy spell, a happy or disturbing atmosphere….a window towards another world.
Times change! I forget for a while Figuration and I let me go towards exploration…
The contemplation of Colour stimulates the imagination and observation allows ceaseless and surprising discoveries. What does the color tell us? What fantasies, desires or plenitude do we feel in such an intimacy? Sky blue, yellow solar, red passionate, the nuances colour our thoughts, our hopes".

• Yolanda & H sculptures demonstrate the interconnection and reliance between all living forms.

In some sculptures, the bright, vivid fluorescent yellow light - glowing from within - is juxtaposed by the rigid, decaying Corten steel rusting away. Nature is symbolized by the striking yellow light; it is omnipresent and never fully overcome by the Corten steel representing human kind. This work bears witness to the significant conflict that is taking place before us. Refusing to be suppressed, the delicate form of nature radiates its fluorescent yellow aura against the steel. The dissonance between human production and the natural environment gives birth to mutated, hybrid forms, strange and surreal: human vital organs - strange and surreal - meld with the forms of sea animals. Brain coral is a familiar structure...conjuring an association with human intelligence.

However, before anything else, these sculptures lead us to wonder, "What is our intention toward our universe?" What is our place in an anarchically developing mankind that upsets the balances of the world? Man is losing contact with the elements and forces around him. His conscience about what connects him to these has highly become blunted up to the point of weakening every ecosystem. What is our way of thinking really worth? Is it favourable for us? Or is it on the contrary driving us further apart from this conscience that is so essential to the natural balance of our world; at the risk of causing our downfall and taking with us a large part of the human, animal and plant world. Yolanda & H are not trying to convince others about stakes threatening us. Their work is rather the result of a research which allows them to sharpen our conscience.


Begramoff Gallery
Address
rue Stevin  206
1000 Brussel
 
Opening hours
Monday up until Friday  10h - 14h30
and by appointment
 
 
 
 

2016-11-10

6434 - 20170325 - Galerie Valérie Bach & La Patinoire Royale - Joana Vasconcelos - 23.11.2016-25.03.2017

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JOANA VASCONCELOS
 
De fil(s) en aiguille(s)
 
Joana Vasconcelos was born in Paris in 1971. Lives and works in Lisbon. She has exhibited regularly since the mid-1990s. After her participation in the 51st International Art Exhibition– la Biennale di Venezia in 2005, her work became known internationally. Recent highlights of her career include Trafaria Praia, project for the Pavilion of Portugal at the 55th International Art Exhibition– la Biennale di Venezia (2013); a solo exhibition at the Château de Versailles, France (2012); participation in the group exhibition 'The World Belongs to You' at the Palazzo Grassi/François Pinault Foundation, Venice (2011); and her first retrospective, held at the Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon (2010).

Vasconcelos has had solo exhibitions and projects at the 56th International Art Exhibition– la Biennale di Venezia (2015); Waddesdon Manor - The Rothschild Foundation, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom (2015); Manchester Art Gallery (2014); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2013); Palácio Nacional da Ajuda, Lisbon (2013); CENTQUATRE, Paris (2012); Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, Denmark (2011); Es Baluard, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (2009); Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2008); Palazzo Nani Bernardo Lucheschi, Venice (2007); The New Art Gallery Walsall, United Kingdom (2007); CaixaForum, Barcelona (2006); Passage du Désir/BETC EURO RSCG, Paris (2005), Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain (2003); Museu da Eletricidade, Lisbon (2001); and the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2000).

Vasconcelos has participated in numerous group exhibitions in venues such as Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2015); Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, Stockholm (2014); FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France (2013); ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain (2012); the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC (2011); Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon (2010); Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow (2009); FRAC Île-de-France/Le Plateau, Paris (2008), MUDAM, Luxembourg City (2007); Istanbul Modern (2006); MUSAC, Léon, Spain (2005); Stenersenmuseet, Oslo (2004); MARCO, Vigo, Spain (2003); Mucsarnok, Budapest (2002); and the XXVI Bienal de Arte de Pontevedra, Spain (2000).

Vasconcelos’s work has been featured in many books. Recent highlights include Joana Vasconcelos: Material World (Thames & Hudson, 2015); Nature Morte by Michael Petry (Thames & Hudson, 2013); Sculpture Now by Anna Moszynska (Thames & Hudson, 2013); The Naked Nude by Frances Borzello (Thames & Hudson, 2012); Arte Portuguesa: História Essencial by Paulo Pereira (Temas e Debates and Círculo de Leitores, 2011), 2010); Tactile: High Touch Visuals, edited by Sven Ehmann, Matthias Huebner, and Robert Klanten (Gestalten, 2009); and Regard sur la sculpture contemporaine by Gérard Xuriguera (FVW, 2008).

Vasconcelos’s work has been featured in the journals Architectural Digest (Madrid, Milan); Art Actuel (Stains, France); Art+Auction (New York), Artforum (New York); Art Press (Paris); Beaux Arts (Issy-les-Moulineaux, France); Contemporary (London); Flash Art (Milan); Tema Celeste (Milan); and The Art Newspaper (London). Her work has also been featured in various newspapers, including El Mundo (Madrid); El País (Madrid); Financial Times (London); International Herald Tribune (Paris); L’Express (Paris); Le Figaro (Paris), Le Monde (Paris); Libération (Paris); The Daily Telegraph (London); The Guardian (London); The Independent (London); and The New York Times (New York).

Vasconcelos’s work is in various private and public collections, including Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul; ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain; Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Lisbon; Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, Lisbon; Centro de Artes Visuales Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, Spain; Domaine Pommery, Reims, France; Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la création, Paris; FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France; Fundação EDP, Lisbon; Gerard L. Cafesjian Collection, Yerevan, Armenia; MACE – Coleção António Cachola, Elvas, Portugal; MUSAC, Léon, Spain; Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; and the Pinault Collection, Paris and Venice.
 
The nature of Joana Vasconcelos’ creative process is based on the appropriation, decontextualisation and subversion of pre-existent objects and everyday realities. Sculptures and installations, which are revealing of an acute sense of scale and mastery of colour, as well as the recourse to performances and video or photographic records, all combine in the materialization of concepts which challenge the pre-arranged routines of the quotidian. Starting out from ingenious operations of displacement, a reminiscence of the ready-made and the grammars of Nouveau Réalisme and pop, the artist offers us a complicit vision, but one which is at the same time critical of contemporary society and the several features which serve the enunciations of collective identity, especially those that concern the status of women, class distinction or national identity. From this process there derives a speech which is attentive to contemporary idiosyncrasies, where the dichotomies of hand-crafted/industrial, private/public, tradition/modernity and popular culture/erudite culture are imbued with affinities that are apt to renovate the usual fluxes of signification which are characteristic of contemporaneity.
 
 
 
Galerie Valérie Bach
La Patinoire Royale
Address
rue Veydt  15
1060 Brussel
 
Opening hours
Tuesday up until Saturday  11h - 13h & 14h - 19h