WARMENHOVEN & VENDERBOS Blog » Painting

Felice Varini | Point of view

W&V — Thu, 05 May 2011 11:30:55 +0000

Felice Varini was born in 1952 in Locarno, Switzerland. and currently lives in Paris. He creates fascinating optical art.
His field of action is architectural and urban space and everything that constitutes such spaces. These spaces are and remain the original media for his painting. He works “on site”, each time in a different space and his work develops itself in relation to the spaces he encounters. The paintings are characterized by geometric shapes and by a single vantage point from which the viewer can see the complete painting, while various ‘broken’ fragmented shapes are seen from various other view points.

Felice Varini about his work:

“I generally roam through the space noting its architecture, materials, history and function. From these spatial data and in reference to the last piece I produced, I designate a specific vantage point for viewing from which my intervention takes shape.

The vantage point is carefully chosen: it is generally situated at my eye level and located preferably along an inevitable route, for instance an aperture between one room and another, a landing… I do not, however, make a rule out of this, for all spaces do not systematically possess an evident line. It is often an arbitrary choice. The vantage point will function as a reading point, that is to say, as a potential starting point to approaching painting and space.

The painted form achieves its coherence when the viewer stands at the vantage point.When he* moves out of it, the work meets with space generating infinite vantage points on the form. It is not therefore through this original vantage point that I see the work achieved; it takes place in the set of vantage points the viewer can have on it.

If I establish a particular relation to architectural features that influence the installation shape, my work still preserves its independence whatever architectural spaces I encounter. I start from an actual situation to construct my painting. Reality is never altered, erased or modified, it interests and seduces me in all its complexity. I work “here and now”.”

Photos by: Felice Varini | Video by: Christophe Loizillon | Felice Varini website

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Wade Guyton | conceptual monochrome paintings

W&V — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:01:20 +0000

Currently the museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany is showing an interesting exhibition from work of American artist Wade Guyton. The monochrome planes, stripes and bars, which Guyton has recently begun using very often, are computer-generated. The colour black and the letter X have become signature motifs in his work. These newer paintings by Wade herald the modernist motif par excellence: the monochrome. The classical monochromes by Alexander Rodchenko or Robert Ryman had already served to reduce painting to its essence: color, canvas, and frame. It can be assumed that Guyton’s monochrome bars, even when they appear in larger complexes, have a similar objective to that of Rodchenko and Ryman, namely self-reflective painting. However where other artists have used brushes, light, sounds or even metaphors to paint, Wade started (ab) using an inkjet printer. As medium he started out with paper but moved to canvas. He prints the elementary geometric forms he uses over and over again by feeding the canvas into the printer again and again. This sometimes causes the print head to lose grip. These errors in the printing process produce elisions and streaks.

Guyton follows a strict plan; it is for instance important that the dimensions of each canvas be adapted to the technical details and the space in question. And although the width of all the artist’s works produced on the printer is the same, the length is oriented to the architecture of the exhibition room.

The exhibition in the museum Ludwig is curated by Dr. Julia Friedrich and will run until 22-08-2010

Photos Wade Guyton Maurice Cox | museum Ludwig

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Herman and Nicole Daled collection: Less is more

W&V — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:29:58 +0000

Marcel Broodthaers, La robe de maria, mixed media on canvas
120 x 100 x 12 cm
Daled collection

Lawrence Weiner, a bit of matter and a little bit more
language + the materials referred to
original cardboard stencil, 43,5 x 57,5 cm
Daled collection

Belgian collector couple Herman and Nicole Daled refuse to perceive art as decoration. They are considering the concept behind a piece of art more important than its realization and approach art in a fundamentally different way: basis for their activities are their relationships and conversations with artists. in keeping with the aim of conceptual art that places the intellectual content of a work above its realisation, they consider themselves not collectors but communicators and producers: they provide artists with the opportunity to also realise works outside of established market mechanisms. their intense engagement with conceptual art, one of the most important movements in recent art history, goes far beyond usual collecting practices. this is not only apparent in the actual works, but also in the meticulously archived documents containing actions and works.

James Lee Byars, Robe pour cinq personnes
Textile fabrics
dimensions variable
Daled collection

One of the most important influences for Herman and Nicole Daled was Marcel Broodthaers; more than 80 of his works are in their collection. moreover, the collection holds several works by Daniel Buren, Dan Graham, On Kawara, Sol Lewitt, Niele Toroni, Lawrence Weiner, Cy Twombly and many more.

Less is more is a very inspiring exhibition from the amazing personal conceptual art collection and archives of Herman and Nicole Daled. It will feature pictures, objects, paintings and concepts.The exhibition concentrates on the period between 1966 and 1978, thereby providing a lively portrait of the progressive, international art scene at that time. It will run until the 25Th of July 2010 at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany.

On Kawara, Today Series: Oct. 31, 1971.
Oil on Canvas, 20,5 x 25,5 cm.
Daled Collection

On Kawara, I got up
Series of 108 postcards sent to Herman Daled daily between may 18 and september 3
14 x 9 cm
Daled collection

Niele Toroni, Empreintes de pinceau N° 50 répétées à intervalles réguliers de 30 cm
Paint on canvas, 100 x 100 cm.
Daled Collection

Daniel Buren, untitled
12 paintings (acrylic on cloth)
installation view Haus der Kunst
Daled Collection

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Tobias Rehberger – flat: Posters, Poster Concepts and Wall Paintings

W&V — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 11:50:39 +0000

The conceptual artist Tobias Rehberger is generally known for his 3D installations, this exhibition of 2D work marks a departure for the German artist; it is the first time he shows his wall-based posters and paintings at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst In Frankfurt, The city where he is also professor of sculpture at the Städelschule.

The selection of works in the exhibition will range from posters the artist designed of his own accord for products of personal significance to him – whether sportswear manufacturer “Adidas” or the farmer “Bauer Mann” in the Frankfurt Kleinmarkthalle – to his wild postings as integral elements of exhibitions.

Rehberger has replicated the logos exactly rather than subverting them by altering the iconography of the brands or products. He takes the view that these images stand as his own works of art simply because he has chosen to create them and believes that it is his aesthetic choice, and the subsequent materialisation and destination of the work, that prevents the posters from being viewed as marketing or advertising. This idea is one that Rehberger has explored repeatedly, notably with his installation of a working cafeteria as his contribution to the 2009 Venice Biennale, which won the Golden Lion Award.

As with these posters, he was posing the question “what can be considered art and why?”

The exhibition in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt will run until the 2nd of May, 2010

Photo top: Tobias Rehberger, “Was Du liebst, bringt dich auch zum Weinen”, Detail Mixed Media, Venice Biennale 2009 Courtesy: Galerie Neugerriemschneider Berlin; shot by: Wolfgang Günzel, Offenbach | Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt

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Black. Masters of Black in Fashion & Costume

W&V — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:28:19 +0000

BLACK. Masters of Black in Fashion & Costume
ZWART. Meesterlijk Zwart in Mode & Kostuum

The current exhibition in the MoMu (Mode Museum Antwerpen) illustrates the historic phases of the colour black, with examples from painting, historic costume and contemporary fashion. It also looks more deeply into the textures and the potentials of black in diverse materials, including fur, leather and lace. In addition, the exhibition includes masterpieces by contemporary designers who, like the city of Antwerp, have a special connection to black.
The exhibition features silhouettes by Belgian designers as well as international couture houses like for example Ann Demeulemeester, Olivier Theyskens and Dirk Van Saene.

The exhibition BLACK. Masters of Black in Fashion & Costume runs from the 25Th of March till the 8Th of August 2010 in MoMu, Antwerp, belgium.

Photos: MoMu Antwerp, Marjolein Steensma | Mode Museum Antwerpen | Modeblog.nl

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James Laver on clothes, fashion and the mind

W&V — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 11:14:19 +0000

Quote on clothes, fashion and the human mind from the English author, art historian, museum curator who acted as keeper of prints, drawings and paintings for the Victoria and Albert Museum and pioneering fashion historian: James Laver.

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On Kawara Reading One Million Years

W&V — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:01:55 +0000

On Kawara, a Japanese conceptual artist living in New York City, made since 1966 a long series of “date paintings” (the Today series), which consist entirely of the date on which the painting was executed in white lettering set against a solid background. Other series of works include the “I Went and I Met” series of postcards sent to his friends detailing aspects of his life. A second series of postcards, I Got Up At, rubber-stamped with the time he got up that morning, and a series of telegrams sent to various people bearing the message “I am still alive”.

In 1971 he started with his work called ‘A Million Years’. This ten volume piece was produced concurrently with a series which would later be seen as his defining work. ‘A Million Years’ was, just as its title states, a series of numbers counting back the last million years from 1969. It was later accompanied by ‘One Million Years (future)’ which counts forwards from 1980. In 1993 Kawara transformed One Million Years (Future) from a written to recorded state. The impetus for this metamorphosis was an exhibition for Dia Center for the Arts that ran from January 1, 1993, to December 31 of the same year. The below video made by New York art tours gives an impression of ‘One Million Years”

The exhibition was comprised of three parts, a selection of one thousand Today paintings, the ten volumes of One Million Years (Past) and the recording of One million Years (Future), in which a male and female voice continuously, year after year, count into the future. A segment of this recording was transformed into a CD. With the exhibition the viewer plays a more passive role, entering into the space where the recording plays continuously, whereas with the CD the amount of time is limited, 74 minutes, and contains a set number of years (1994 AD to 2613 AD), thus transforming the infinite time of the exhibition into the finite time of the CD. With the CD the viewer is able to manipulate the duration and chronology of the CD, thus entering into a far more active relation to the work. You can listen to a part of the work in the below Ubuweb podcast.

Photos: On Kawara | David Zwirner Gallery | Sources: Ubuweb, Wikipedia | Video: New York Art Tours Youtube channel

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Jeff Koons: New Paintings

W&V — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:19:56 +0000

Jeff Koons was born in York, PA in 1955. He obtained a B.F.A at The Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore, and also studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since his emergence in the 1980s Jeff Koons has blended the concerns and methods of Pop, Conceptual, and appropriation art with craft-making and popular culture to create his own unique iconography, often controversial and always engaging. His work explores contemporary obsessions with sex and desire; race and gender; and celebrity, media, commerce, and fame. A self-proclaimed “idea man,” Koons hires artisans and technicians to make the actual works. For him, the hand of the artist is not the important issue: “Art is really just communication of something and the more archetypal it is, the more communicative it is.”

New paintings by Jeff Koons will be shown in the Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills, U.s.a. The vernissage of this exhibition will be on November the 14th 2009 and the exhibition will run until January 9 ,2010.

Koons’ new paintings are ambitious in their breadth. They engage in a dialogue with cultural history that is at once visual, intellectual, biological, and philosophical, as well as with art history, from the Venus of Willendorf to Gustave Courbet and Salvador Dali. At first glance the works may seem abstract and gestural, but at the same time they are embedded in the traditions of figurative painting. The brush strokes, which are photo realistic in their application, are actually fake brush strokes in the style of Roy Lichtenstein but at the same time they support the totality of gesture and action in life itself. The visual quality of Cy Twombly’swork is a reference as is its embodiment of the existential issues of what it means to be an artist. The depth in these paintings is figurative depth; the painted dots create holograms, giving an illusion of depth of field that is similar to that which exists between the viewer’s plane and the figure in Courbet’s L’Origine du Monde. The dot overlay represents past technologies, like color television, to remind the viewer of change and mortality. Through his ongoing exploration of cultural history and sexuality, Koons draws attention to time past, present, and future.

Photos Jeff Koons | Gagosian Gallery

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