The Alchemy of Color- Jeanine Cohen at Hverfisgallerí

by Erin Honeycutt | Þriðjudagur.03.2017 | artzine in english

The Alchemy of Color- Jeanine Cohen at Hverfisgallerí

The Space Between by the Belgian artist Jeanine Cohen is now on view at Hverfisgallerí from March 17^th to April 29^th.

Jeanine Cohen (1951- ) is foremost a painter. In her work, she carries the painting tradition into an architectural frontier in which the exhibition space takes part in the referencing of a frame. At Hverfisgallerí, Cohen presents two new series, Diagonal and Angles, in which she continues exploring the ways in which a frame can be referenced without a canvas, revolving around the parameters of paint application, color and light interaction, and the expansion of the pictorial surface. Like miniature architectural models, the works contain a world of atmospheric possibilities in themselves. Cohen has found a way to animate these worlds using the movement of the viewer to bring about a shifting of interplays between light and color within the space.

Diagonal and Angles speaks of accounts of subjectivity in architecture that tell the simple story about interiors and exteriors. In the form of a painting, the folded multidimensional framework tells us that what is interior is nothing more than a fold of the exterior. As in Deleuze’s ‘fold’ which he uses to expound on his concepts of the possibilities of producing subjectivity, the interplay of light and color guided by the referential frame can be seen as a topology of these meeting places called ‘folds.’

Jeanine Cohen, Diagonal N°3, 2017.

In the Diagonal series, Cohen pairs the dense colors of the outer edges, an olive green and a wine red, with fluorescent hues of the same tones, which are painted on the underside of wooden panels. These fluorescent hues reflect on another layer of white panels as well as on the gallery wall. A shadow play emerges, although the shadow is made of light.

There is a prescience to the electronic image in the works, related in the alchemy of colors that hang in a balance of appearing and disappearing, in the red and green hues that were also the two-color system used in early Technicolor processes, and in the way the panels criss-cross as in the intersecting lines which make up an electronic image plane. The hues reverberate from the frame, making the image expand and contract. In the Angles series, the fluorescence shifts against the vacuum created by the black and white.

Jeanine Cohen, Angle N°5, 2017.

If perspective is the guiding force of painting, then the narrative focus provided by perspective can be seen in Cohen’s work to be telling a story about the history of the pictorial surface of the painting and where it collides with architecture. The story seems to tell us that we are now beyond the vanishing point; it sits somewhere behind us as we experience the shadow of fluorescent light on a canvas that doesn’t exist. Cohen collapses the narrative of perspective while giving the works their own glow from within, similar to the confrontation between temporal and spiritual authority in a Renaissance painting.

Winter Series N°1, 2013

A previous piece from 2013 also exhibited at Hverfisgallerí shows another organization of structural planes in which to consider the frame. In Winter Series No. 1, a cross-shaped structure emanates a backlit glow of pink neon amongst a further interplay of shadow and angle and denser color hues.

Donald Judd, Untitled (Bernstein 89-1), 1989, installation view. Photo: David Zwirner Gallery.

Dan Flavin (1933-1996), the American minimalist sculptor and installation artist used industrial neon lighting tubes to bring together color and light, while Cohen organically goes about electrifying her work. Using neon light tubes and metal fixtures, Flavin brings an extra dimension to the conversation between light and color in the exhibition space. His neon installations initiated focus on the orientation of the viewer’s experience of the work.

Cohen’s elucidation on the conversational nature of color brings to mind other artists whose work with color and light take part in a similar discussion. Donald Judd (1928-1994) American sculptor also worked towards an absolving of interactions between space, light and color. In his wall stacks using colored Plexiglas and steel from the late 1980s, light is filtered in an alteration of presentations as the viewer interacts with the exhibition. The simple relation of objects reminds the viewer of the natural properties of light and color.

Dan Flavin, untitled (to the “innovator” of Wheeling Peachblow), 1966-1968. Photo: MOMA.

These earlier contemporaries of Cohen’s explored the parameters of their shared artistic elements in innovative ways which are relevant here only to highlight the contribution Cohen has made to existing fields. The structures holding these works look like canvas stretchers without canvas, or architectural drawing boards, but not a work pictorially displayed in any traditional sense. Cohen bridges the gap between painting and architecture, creating a fluid vanishing point where light and color are hung impossibly on shadow and form. Like a prescience to time-based arts, the works’ infrastructure moves between an image of construction and destruction, in a disappearing act with the wall, the atmospheric colors hyperreal in the way that they are already closer to a memory.

Höfundur: Erin Honeycutt

Links:

http://www.jeaninecohen.net/

Resources:

http://www.davidzwirner.com/

Deleuze, Gilles. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. Translated by Tom Conley, The Athlone Press, 1993.

Tveir áttungar – Kristinn E. Hrafnsson

by artzine | Föstudagur.05.2016 | Uncategorized

English below

Hverfisgallerí kynnir með ánægju aðra einkasýningu Kristins E. Hrafnssonar hjá galleríinu.

Sýningin dregur heiti sitt af lykilverki sýningarinnar sem er stór og mikill stálskúlptúr sem samanstendur af tveimur áttungum úr kúlu. Í verkum Kristins má greina heimspekilegan þráð og vangaveltur um rúm og tíma, hreyfingu, afstæði og tungumál. List hans fjallar um manninn og skilning hans á umhverfi sínu og hvernig náttúran mótar sýn hans og samskipti. Samband listaverksins við vettvanginn er mikilvægur þáttur í verkum hans, en á ferli sínum hefur Kristinn gert fjölda umhverfisverka, ýmist einn eða í samvinnu með öðrum. Ljóðrænir textar gegna stóru hlutverki í verkum hans.

Kristinn E. Hrafnsson er fæddur árið 1960 á Ólafsfirði. Hann stundaði nám við Myndlistaskólann á Akureyri og Myndlista- og handíðaskóla Íslands og lauk framhaldsnámi frá Akademie der Bildenden Künste í München í Þýskalandi árið 1990. Verk Kristins hafa verið sýnd á Íslandi og víða um Evrópu og er verk hans að finna í öllum helstu listasöfnum á Íslandi, sem og í opinberum söfnum og einkasöfnum. Kristinn býr og starfar í Reykjavík.

keh.is

Sýningin stendur til 2. júlí.

________________________________________________________
OPENING SATURDAY MAY 28TH AT 4 – 6 PM

Hverfisgalleri is pleased to present Kristinn E. Hrafnson´s second solo exhibition at the gallery.

The exhibition draws its name from the key work of the exhibition, a large steel sculpture consisting of two eighths of a ball. In Kristinn´s works one can detect a philosophical thread and a pondering of time, space, movement, relativity and language. His art deals with people, and man´s understanding of his surroundings and how nature influences his outlook and relationships. The relationship between the artwork and its surroundings has always been an important aspect of his work, but throughout his career Kristinn has created numerous site specific works, outdoors and indoors, both in collaboration with architects and as solo projects. Poetic texts play an important role in his works.

Kristinn E. Hrafnsson was born in 1960 in Ólafsfjörður, Iceland. He studied at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and graduate finished his graduate studies at Akademie der Bildenden Kunste in Munich, Germany in 1990. Kristinn´s works have been exhibited widely in Iceland and Europe, and his works belong to all of Iceland´s major museums, both private and public. Kristinn lives and works in Reykjavik.

keh.is

Runs through July 2nd.

Skafmynd / Þór Sigurþórsson í Hverfisgallerí

by artzine | Laugardagur.04.2016 | Uncategorized

Skafmynd / Þór Sigurþórsson í Hverfisgallerí

Þór Sigurþórsson – Skafmynd

16.04 – 21.05 2016

(English below)

Skafmynd nefnist fyrsta einkasýning Þórs Sigurþórssonar í Hverfisgallerí.

Titill sýningarinnar Skafmynd dregur nafn sitt af efni sem listamaðurinn hefur unnið með í nokkur ár, seigfljótandi silfurgráa málningu sem m.a. er notuð sem þunnt lag á skafmiða til þess að fela hugsanlegan vinning. Efnið er til þess eins að vera skafið af, ógagnsætt lag sem hylur hluta myndarinnar en felur um leið í sér ákveðna athöfn, að skafa og sjá hvort maður hafi heppnina með sér.

Á sýningunni má sjá myndröð óljósra ljósmynda sem þaktar eru skafefninu auk skúlptúra úr ónothæfum gluggasköfum, en saman mynda verkin sterka fagurfræðilega heild. Verkin á sýningunni einkennast sem fyrr af mikilli næmni Þórs fyrir efni og formi sem finna má í okkar nánasta umhverfi og við veitum ef til ekki eftirtekt við fyrstu sýn.

Þór Sigurþórsson (f. 1977) kláraði B.A. próf í myndlist frá Listaháskóla Íslands árið 2002 stundaði svo nám í Academy Der Bildenden Kunste í Vín. Árið 2008 útskrifaðist hann með MFA í myndlist frá School of Visual Arts í New York. Hann hefur tekið þátt í fjölda sýninga hér á landi og erlendis og haldið nokkrar einkasýningar. Haustið 2015 fékk Þór styrk úr sjóði Svavars Guðnasonar og Ástu Eiríksdóttur sem veittur var í Listasafni Íslands.

Í verkum sínum fæst Þór oft við greiningu á hlutum sem við höfum aðlagað líkamanum; sem verða hálfgerðar framlengingar af líkamanum og sem við notum til að skoða og fást við heiminn. Verk hans ögra skilningi okkar á hversdagslegum hlutum og storka klisjum okkar um fegurð og náttúru. Skjáir og skjámenning hefur verið Þóri ofarlega í huga undanfarið. Verk hans samanstanda oftar en ekki af ljósmyndum sem hann hefur unnið með því að mála yfir með skafmálningu eða hulið með einu af mörgum lögum sem finna má í LED skjám. Algengir fundnir hlutir sem fyrirfinnast í hversdagsleikanum hafa einnig verið uppistaða í verkum hans en með því að taka þá í sundur og algerlega úr samhengi verða þeir næstum ókunnugir.

Sýningin stendur út 21. maí

Skafmynd is Þór Sigurþórsson´s first solo exhibition at Hverfisgalleri.

The title of the exhibition (scratch image) takes its name from the material the artist has worked with for several years; a viscous, silver coloured rub removable ink that is for instance used as a thin layer on lottery tickets to cover a potential winning prize. The material has the sole purpose to be scratched off, an opaque layer covering parts of an image which at the same time includes a certain action, to scratch and see if one gets lucky.

The exhibition consists of a series of ambiguous photographs covered partly by the rub removable ink as well as sculptures made of unusable window cleaning scrapers, creating together a strong aesthetic whole. The works are characterised by Sigurþórsson´s delicate sense for material and form found in our closest environment that we perhaps do not pay attention to at first glance.

Þór Sigurþórsson (b. 1977) obtained a BA degree in fine arts from the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2002 and in 2008 he graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York with an MFA. He has exhibited at art venues in Iceland and abroad. In fall 2015 he was the grant recipient from the Svavar Guðnason and Ásta Eiríksdóttir fund which is given to young and emerging artists.

In his most recent works Sigurþórsson has been preoccupied with screens and screen culture. Through his works he analyzes things we have adapted to our bodies; things that have become extensions of ourselves and that we use to explore and engage with the world. His works challenge our perception of everyday objects and defy clichés about beauty and nature. Sigurthorsson’s works often consist of manipulated abstract photographs but he has also used found objects extensively as his medium. The objects are those that we use and see regularly in our everyday lives but by deconstructing them and taking them completely out of context they become almost unrecognizable.

Runs through May 21st

Sjónlýsing – Hverfisgallerí

by artzine | Föstudagur.03.2016 | Uncategorized

Laugardaginn 19. mars kl 15:00 verður Þórunn Hjartardóttir með sjónlýsingu á verkum Guðjóns Ketilssonar á sýningunni Málverk í Hverfisgalleríi. Listamaðurinn verður einnig á svæðinu og tekur þátt í samtalinu.

Sýningin samanstendur meðal annars af verkum þar sem listamaðurinn vann með eigin málverk sem unnin voru á 9. áratug síðustu aldar, auk texta sem lýsir því sem fyrir augu bar í hverju verki. Guðjón skar málverkin niður í þunnar ræmur sem hann svo límdi þétt saman. Eftir stendur því málverk án myndar og texti sem stendur fyrir þá mynd sem eitt sinn var.

Texta málverkanna vann Þórunn Hjartardóttir en hún tekur að sér lýsingu á myndlist fyrir blinda og sjóndapra. Það er ákveðin færni sem felst í því að lýsa verkum eins og þau standa án þess að fylla lýsinguna sínum eigin túlkunum eða með of sterkum lýsingarorðum. Þórunn ætlar að vera með sjónlýsingu á verkunum eins og þau standa núna og segja gestum frá því hvernig hún vinnur lýsingarnar.

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