Andreas Erikksonn - Coincidental Mapping @ Stephen Friedman Gallery

ANDREAS ERIKSSON - COINCIDENTAL MAPPING
27 April 2013 - 25 May 2013

Stephen Friedman Gallery is delighted to announce its first exhibition of work by Andreas Eriksson.
Born in 1975, this is the Swedish artist's first solo exhibition in the UK and follows his lauded presentation for the Nordic Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Eriksson's acutely atmospheric paintings, tapestries, sculptures and photographs relate to his daily life and the natural surroundings of his native Scandinavia. This body of work sits somewhere between abstraction and figuration, creating an enigmatic window to the outside world that feels at once familiar and mysterious.

Inspired by the Romantic Nordic tradition, Eriksson's work also alludes to but remains separate from what historian Robert Rosenblum called the ‘Northern Romantic tradition', a line that started with Caspar David Friedrich and extends to Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and onto Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. However, unlike these artists, Eriksson does not refer to his relationship to nature as religious yet his work conveys the same calm, atmospheric and harmonic qualities.

Eriksson's output reflects a sense of the isolation of nature, a factor of Eriksson's everyday life as his studio is located deep in Medelplana in the Swedish countryside. Eriksson uses these natural surroundings, as experienced on his daily walks, as the source for the work. He does not merely map this landscape but, experimenting with formalism and material, impresses on the viewer his visual and emotional experience of these everyday encounters.

The exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery will include a group of new painting, ranging from the intimate to the epic in scale. Eriksson's paintings continue the exploration of his reactions to the perception and experience of the outside world. The gestural, textured forms, layering and distinct brushwork convey both his feelings and emotions when encountering nature, allowing the work to dwell between these real and imagined places. Complementing these paintings will be a group of new tapestries; densely packed woven landscapes rich in both texture and colour. The works appear both as patchwork landscapes seen from above and magnified details of organic form and texture; an intimate personal encounter with nature and expansive vista at the same time. These intricate tapestries rely on the dominance of vertical and horizontal lines in parallel and the reductive use of colour that is also a feature of his paintings.

The exhibition ‘Coincidental Mapping' provokes both the sensual and the conceptual, expanding a fleeting observation and an overlooked detail, whilst asking us to pause, consider and reflect. The same properties that are important in the artist's experience of nature remain integral to his work.

The exhibition runs from 27 April to 25 May 2013 in our No. 11 Old Burlington Street gallery.

Mamma Andersson - Gooseberry @ Stephen Friedman Gallery

MAMMA ANDERSSON - GOOSEBERRY
27 April 2013 - 25 May 2013

Stephen Friedman Gallery is delighted to announce an exhibition of new paintings by established Swedish artist Mamma Andersson.

This is the artist's fourth solo exhibition at the gallery and follows highly acclaimed survey shows at Moderna Museet, Sweden; Camden Arts Centre, UK and Aspen Art Museum, USA.

Born in 1962, Andersson paints from her subconscious, creating complex compositions that bring together a variety of sources including Nordic figurative painting, folk art, film imagery and her personal history. This exhibition shows the development of Andersson's recognisable painterly style in sensuous new paintings populated by ghostly figures amid dreamlike interiors and seemingly calm vistas.

The title of the exhibition, ‘Gooseberry', refers to the bittersweet fruit: its complex taste bound by its prickly and yet beautiful translucent exterior. It also draws to mind the English expression ‘to play gooseberry' whereby someone feels alienated, observing a scene but not being a part of it. Such intertwining and hidden analogies resonate strongly with Andersson who delights in hinted and disjointed narratives. Her paintings invite our reading through their enticing familiarity, and yet deny a specific storyline, much like disparate film stills suspended in time. The viewer becomes an outside voyeur, drawn in to untangle the artist's vision.

Andersson takes a collagist approach to her source imagery, drawing from both personal and public spheres. In two complimentary paintings entitled 'Hello' and ‘Goodbye', Andersson uses a found image of the interior of a burgled clock shop, taken from a photograph of the crime scene. Reflected onto each canvas, akin to a Rorschach ink blot, we see in ‘Hello' the artist's grandfather approaching us and in its counterpart her mother is walking away. Andersson states: 'On one side this has come to be a very personal piece, but at the same time it is very general'.

During her painting process Andersson's technique changes from meticulous detail to gestural abstraction, as loose washes give way to stark lines, thick impasto and graphic figuration. Inspired by Japanese print-making, she uses oil on board to layer textures and in this exhibition uses broad applications of dark paint. This is seen particularly in ‘Family Ties' where a group of otherworldly, brooding figures are joined together in a haunting circle dance. Alternating between sparse and concentrated brushstrokes, Andersson conjures up emotive scenarios that speak to the human condition.

Hallucinatory and enigmatic, the paintings in ‘Gooseberry' present the artist's distinct and personal visual language imbued with a sense of mystery and magic.

The exhibition runs from 27 April to 25 May 2013 in our 25-28 Old Burlington Street gallery.

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Yinka Shonibare MBE POP! Exhibition

YINKA SHONIBARE MBE - POP!

16 March 2013 - 20 April 2013

Stephen Friedman Gallery is delighted to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Yinka Shonibare, MBE.

This exhibition of all new works focuses on the corruption, excess and debauchery that have in part led to the current economic crisis. With characteristic wit and critique, Yinka Shonibare explores the contemporary worship of luxury goods and the behaviour of the banking industry while referencing well known iconography and art historical homage - most notably in his creation of a large tableau based on Leonardo da Vinci's ‘The Last Supper'.

POP! not only presents some of Shonibare's most ambitious work of late but also reflects the artist's engagement with social commentary. It heralds a new direction for the artist with large-scale self-portraits inspired by Andy Warhol's 1986 series ‘Camouflage'. The exhibition provides a unique opportunity for audiences to assess Shonibare's most recent lines of enquiry.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is the artist's largest and most complex sculptural tableau: a subverted depiction of Leonardo da Vinci's ‘The Last Supper' where Bacchus replaces the central figure of Christ. The Roman god of wine is here transformed into a headless satyr: half-man, half-goat. Surrounding him at this debauched banquet are his twelve beheaded disciples cast in poses of sexual and animalistic abandon. In homage to da Vinci, and filtered through the lens of Victoriana, the scene unravels as the Dionysiac climax of a pan-historical hedonistic party. By removing the figures' heads, a recurring motif in Shonibare's work, the artist dissuades associations of race. We are also reminded of the executions of the barbarous French Revolution: a period fittingly remembered for its corruption and excess. In direct reference to the celebratory excesses of the banking world, these debauched guests have cast their work troubles aside with no care for tomorrow; scattered across the table is the debris of a lavish feast of both glutton and luxury. This dramatic tableau is a moment frozen in time, inviting us to walk around and marvel at its exuberance.

Furthering the sense of an over-indulgent party, a sharply suited banker is displayed in another room, simulating the act of masturbation with an exploding magnum of champagne. Deliberately brash and humorous, the work combines the light and the dark inherent throughout the exhibition. The corruption caused by obscene amounts of money still carries its scars today as the hangover of the party remains to be cleared up. This contrasting depiction of celebration and depravity is continued in a new series of works entitled ‘Champagne Kids'. These youthful figures each carry a bottle of champagne ready to pop and in the place of their heads are Shonibare's trademark globes, displaying financial data relating to the global economic crisis. Combined with the carnivalesque poses of the figures, they present a powerful commentary on our current state of affairs, as generations suffer the consequences of the banks' over-indulgence.

The second part of the exhibition builds from ‘The Last Supper' by further exploring ideas around the contemporary worship of commodities. Here, the artist's most intricate wall painting is presented in alluring visual opulence. In reference to Shonibare's ‘Toy Paintings', the installation includes a number of round fabric canvases framed by a multitude of different toys. The toys relate to key themes of war, luxury and religion: toy guns, military figurines, shoes, handbags, faux diamonds, crucifixes and the Holy Grail. Spray-painted black, the toys are studded with diamantes creating silhouettes against the vivid gold of the mural behind. The multitude of swirling panels come to represent the fetishisation of war and money, as we simultaneously desire and repel such objects of glittering beauty.

Throughout the exhibition Shonibare uses his trademark wax batik fabric in the tailored outfits of the figures and the canvases of the mural. The material is a poignant interception of our modern and colonial times: inspired by Indonesian design, mass-produced by the Dutch and eventually sold to the colonies in West Africa. The fabric has become emblematic of his practice, closely tied to his own self-recognition as a ‘post-colonial' hybrid. For the first time here, the colours and patterns of the material are used in a group of large-scale self-portraits based on the iconic Pop Artist Andy Warhol's ‘Camouflage' of 1986. Militaristic and haunting, the artist's face is so closely blurred with the patterning of the wax batik that despite its immediate familiarity, he becomes instantly anonymous. As with the other works in the show, the self-portraits are a potent reminder of the illusory boundaries of protection and danger, so closely aligned with power and money.

The exhibition coincides with a major career retrospective at Yorkshire Sculpture Park which includes new and critically acclaimed work from 2002 - 2013 and runs 2 March - 1 September 2013.

Entrance to 'YINKA SHONIBARE MBE - POP!' is free.

ACF LFW Presentation / Launch Party

Thanks for coming through and for the support!

JR.

http://jr-art.net/ >>> a site you should visit at least once a month to remind you how far you can take the art, literally how FAR.

JR owns the biggest art gallery in the world. He exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are not the museum visitors. His work mixes Art and Act, talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit.

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Photography By: Blaize Simone
http://www.blaizesimon.co.uk

Intro......

Blank.......... By ACF (Introduction Exhibition) 27th November 2010

ACF HQ Launch Party (May 2010)

Reality Is A Matter of Perspective - ACF Studio Exhibition

Central Saint Martins graduate Marcus Morrison-Pemberton creates art under the emotionally charged alter ego 'Dupelux'. The 'Reality is a matter of perspective' exhibition deals mainly with consumerism, engaging with specific issues like conspicuous consumption, virtual reality vs reality, branding, and identity to name but a few. Mixed media visuals from a refreshing perspective addressing engaging social and political issues also.

Marcus' artistic inspirational figures are Tobias Wong, Fredrich Hundertwasser, Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. He also draws great inspiration form the works of French sociologist, philosopher and cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard as well as other key figures in the postmodernist movement.

Please check poster for details:

There will be drinks, please RSVP and bring a friend.

ACF Gallery / Studio Launch Party