Gwenneth Boelens, Peggy Franck, Alon Levin, Marijn van Kreij

Endless Lowlands breaking up – part 2

Endless Lowlands breaking up – part 2 is the second part of an exhibition project that – first presented in Zurich and now in Berlin – features young Dutch artists that stand for a new current in Dutch contemporary art, which has met increasing interest abroad. In developing post-graduate programs like those at the Rijksakademie or de Ateliers in Amsterdam the internationalization and integration of different artistic approaches has become programmatic.

“All four artists are graduates from the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, who have left their original medium and work today with a wide range of media. Photography, for example, becomes three-dimensional or even sculptural, sculpture on the other hand finds itself at the intersection with architecture, writing mutates to drawing and vice versa. Formal elements constantly recur and link the at first sight different bodies of work on a visual level. The common basis of the respective works is a very individual construction of utopia.” (Alexandra Blättler)

Gwenneth Boelens takes as point of departure the precise observation and analysis of photography and develops it to three-dimensional installations, performances or video projections. She illustrates, for example, the dialectic relation between culture and nature, the relationship of the human being to space or the fragmentary character of memory and recognition. Her seemingly divergent works unites a subtle pictorial language that does without big gestures or ostensible narration while illuminating its objective very precisely.

Peggy Franck deals with the extension of inherently ‘flat’ photography into space. She composes in so-called studio settings atmospheric ensembles aiming towards a precise section of the image. In her installations, aspects of staging and performance come to effect and objects of daily life emerge next to a minimalist play of form and color. Dramatic narration meets abstract surroundings, content seems to collide with form as does space with photography.

Alon Levin combines drawings, collages and constructed wooden objects to large-scale installations. In his work he looks at structures and systems we often take for granted, those that are informed by philosophical, economical and social theories. And it is Levin’s serial and modular approach that is quite striking. In their extreme interlocking and encompassing spatial quality they themselves resemble constructed utopias that are substitutes for the human pursuit of principles of sense, order and control.

Marijn van Kreij develops – either directly on the wall or on A4 paper – his own world that consists of colorful spots, painting, black and white scribblings, words and fragments of sentences. His drawings appear like a mixture of mindmaps and telephone-doodlings. Van Kreij notes down and erases; mistakes are corrected, repeated and formalized. Hence, the aspect of a conscious composition is reduced to absurdity. What appears to be unknowingly is well thought out and what seems to be spontaneous turns out to be constructed.

Alexandra Blättler works as curator in Zurich and the Netherlands. She is engaged for the foundation BINZ39 in Zurich and Coalmine – space for contemporary photography in Winterthur. Currently she prepares as co-curator a comprehensive exhibition of contemporary art at the Kunsthaus Zurich. (http://www.coalmine.ch)