Month: May 2009

Clare Rojas


Kavi Gupta Gallery is pleased to present our second solo exhibition of new
work by San Francisco based artist Clare Rojas.

Clare Rojas is well known for her intimate gouache paintings and expansive
wall-based murals and installations that feel as if they have been plucked
out of the pages of a fairy tale resonating as both familiar and
fantastically imagined. Her distinctive intricately detailed painting style
utilizing flat areas of color and her limited palette brings to mind both an
expansive history of the craft movement as well as the art of printmaking.
Rojas’s imagery takes hints from folk art such as quilting or pottery and
recurring symbols and patterns can be linked to Amish vernacular, Russian
Matryoshka dolls, Native American textiles as well as contemporary American
comic books.

Clare Rojas’s latest exhibition at Kavi Gupta will feature a complete
immersion into the artist’s invented world. The gallery will be completely
transformed into a “home” for her works as the walls are colorfully painted
and decorative molding transforms the space into a living environment. Large
framed wall paintings, sculptures and groupings of Rojas’s signature
paintings hang from wooden pegs articulating a complete constructed
narrative. Animals, women and men interact within flattened floral
landscapes. Women bleed their powers into the sky. Foliage, flowers and
trees blend with abstract and often surreal pattern and space. The
depictions themselves are allegorical; her portrayals of women are
simultaneously serene, free, painful and powerful.

Clare Rojas (b. 1976) lives and works in San Francisco. Solo museum shows
include Riverside Art Museum, CA ; The Rose Art Museum, Boston; Museo De
Arte Comtemporaneo De Castilla y Leon; Museum Het Domein, Sittard; Ulrich
Museum of Art, Wichita; Knoxville Museum of Art and the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago. Rojas has also had solo exhibitions at Deitch
Projects, NY; Modern Art, London; Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco and
Galleri Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen.

Kavi Gupta

Dexter Dalwood


David Risley Gallery is delighted to announce a solo show by the British artist Dexter Dalwood. The show has been selected to provide an overview of his working practice. This exhibition has been curated to the specific context of Copenhagen with recent events in mind.

Dalwood begins by making small collages, often comprising elements of other artists work. Small painted studies are produced from these collages, which together form the basis for the large canvasses. The show will consist of 3 paintings and 5 collages. The collages, some of which are loaned from the artists personal collection, are rarely exhibited and give the viewer an insight into his working method.

Dalwoodʼs imagined versions of historically potent locales are pulled together from his knowledge of art and pop cultural history. Altamont is based on the infamous events during the free rock festival organised by the Rolling Stones in 1969, often regarded as the symbolic death of the 1960ʼs and hippy idealism. This theme runs throughout the show.

Dalwood is a painter who first came to prominence in the late 1990ʼs in London, where he has participated in major shows at ICA, Gagosian Gallery, Saatchi Gallery and TATE.

Dexter Dalwood is represented by Gagosian Gallery, and has an upcoming solo exhibition at their Los Angeles gallery in the Autumn of 2009. A mid career retrospective of his work will also be shown at Tate, St Ives in 2010. … … … ..
Åbning Onsdag 20 Maj, 2009
17.00 – 20.00
20/05/09 – 27/06/09

David Risley Gallery kan med stor glæde præsentere en soloudstilling af den engelske kunstner Dexter Dalwood. Udstillingens værker er udvalgt til at give et indblik i hans arbejdspraksis. Udstillingen er blevet kurateret til den specifikke kontekst, som er København, med tanke på nylige begivenheder.

Dalwood begynder med at lave små collager, der ofte udgøres af dele af andre kunstneres arbejder. På baggrund af collagerne males små studier, der sammen med collagerne danner grundlaget for de store malerier. Udstillingen vil bestå af 3 malerier og fem collager. Collagerne – nogle af dem udlånt fra kunstnerens private samling – bliver sjældent udstillet og giver beskueren et indblik i Dalwoods arbejdsmetode.

Dalwoods fremstillinger af steder med særlig historisk vægt er sammenstykket af hans viden om kunst og popkulturhistorie. Altamont er baseret på de begivenheder, der fandt sted på rockfestivalen som the Rolling Stones organiserede i 1969. Festivalen ses ofte som 1960erne og hippieidealismens symbolske død. Dette er et gennemgående tema i udstillingen.

Dalwood kom frem sidst i 1990erne i London og har været med i store udstillinger på ICA, Gagosian Gallery, Saatchi Gallery og TATE.

Dexter Dalwood er repræsenteret af Gagosian Gallery og har en kommende soloudstilling på deres galleri i Los Angeles i efteråret 2009. En ”midtkarriere” retrospektiv af hans arbejde vil desuden blive vist på Tate, St. Ives i 2010.

David Risley Gallery

Nobuyoshi Araki "69YK"


Nobuyoshi Araki
“69YK” 2009
B & W print
Courtesy of Taka Ishii Gallery

Taka Ishii Gallery is pleased to announce our forthcoming solo exhibition with Nobuyoshi Araki, “69YK”. Coinciding with his 69th birthday, we are presenting his new works of 6 x 9 monochrome prints.

“All photographs I took with this 69 camera became obscene. But it is not my fault. It is the fault of the camera. (….) Photographers lose their head for art, they try too hard. With this exhibition, I want to beat them up. I say this – a view towards art is not necessary, I think. Plain old photographs are better.”
Nobuyoshi Araki

Araki, who continues making Eros (sex/life) and Thanatos (death) the subject of his work asserts that photography is concerned with the “nature of relation and closeness”. He states that the relationship between himself and the subject is very important, but that the interference of the consciousness of another person is unnecessary.

By daring to use monochrome film, he devotes himself to strengthen his own faith with regards to photography. It seems that this attitude includes a sense of self-discipline.

When looking at the works, in which Araki’s belief is crystallized, one can feel the affection of Araki towards his subjects – women, flowers, the sky – and the love that he receives in return; The works have a scent of an intense exchange of sentiment between the photographer and his subjects.

Araki has reached a fixed position as a “photographer of genius”, yet, his desire to pursue further possibilities of photographic expression remains unfulfilled.

Taka Ishii Gallery

Alte Hasen: Rolf Ricke / Günter Umberg


Alte Hasen (Old Hands)

Rolf Ricke in conversation with Günter Umberg

They are more prudent than others. They have good stamina and are passionately persistent. The old hands are luminaries in their fields and can look back to decades-long experiences in the art world. They possess deep insight into the realm which they have decisively shaped and chaperoned. Their view from a historical distance allows for seeing current developments and changes in the arts with greater perspicuity. In dialogues they narrate the stories of contemporary art offering an insight into their treasure trove of experience.

The gallerist and collector Rolf Ricke, born 1934 in Kassel, counts as being one of the most influential facilitators of contemporary art in Germany. Ricke opened his gallery in Cologne in 1968 and soon was considered to be a pioneer, especially within American Minimal Art, Post Minimal Art and Process Art. He was one of the first practitioners in Germany to exhibit prominent American artists, including Richard Serra and Keith Sonnier, who had their first ever exhibitions in his gallery. Ricke worked with renowned artists such as Donald Judd and presented Richard Artschwager, Barry Le Va, Lee Lozano, Gary Kuehn and others in their first European exhibitions. The gallery’s program, however, also included young American artists such as Jessica Stockholder, Steven Parrino, Cady Noland or David Reed, as well as German and European art from Birgit Werres, Holger Bunk and Günter Umberg. In autumn of 2006, his collection, the Rolf Ricke Collection was jointly acquired by the Museum for Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main, the Art Museum St. Gallen and the Art Museum Liechtenstein.

The artist Günter Umberg, born 1942 in Bonn, studied Fine Art at the art academies in Düsseldorf and Antwerpen and at the Kölner Werkschulen, Cologne. Umberg became internationally known through his monochrome images and his painting style, “Radical Painting”, which focused on the color itself. In 1982 he founded the space “Room for Painting” in Cologne, and has in addition to this curated various group exhibitions since 1993. From 2000 to 2007 Umberg was the professor for painting at the State Academy of Visual Arts in Karlsruhe and today is head of the Freiburg department. Günter Umberg lives and works in Cologne, Freiburg and Corberon in France.

KW Berlin
Berlin Biennale