ART NEWS:Dec.03

Edgar Plans’ work echoes the Contemporary Faux Naïf movement. Seeking direct access to pure artistic expression in childlike art or art brut, Edgar Plans frees himself from the artificial veneer of culture. With a naïve mix of Street Art and children’s book illustration (a nod to the bold tags of teenagers), Edgar Plans presents us with an aesthetic that is both raw and childlike. For the project “The Wall” Edgar Plans presents a large painting and seven small works. The exhibition thrusts us into a neon playground. In this bustling skate park with suspended ramps, the Animal Heroes (characters created by Edgar Plans) play various games that reference video games, comics, and, of course, Street Art. Upon a second look, this painting brings to mind the perspectives in De Chirico that create a subtle imbalance between the ancient and the contemporary. These moving walkways create a sensation of weightlessness and swaying, lulling the viewer into a soothing and euphoric feeling. Info: Almine Rech Gallery, Abdijstraat 20 rue de l’Abbaye, Bruxelles, Belgium, Duration: 9/12/2021-15/1/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.alminerech.com

Marvelous characters populate the canvases of Szabolcs Bozó’s solo exhibition. A panoply of monsters and spirits alternately charm and unsettle their viewers as they gaze from limpid eyes or bare their sharpened teeth. From Krampus to a snail god, the origins of many of Bozó’s creatures derive from the rich, folkloric mythology and tradition of the artist’s native Hungary. The vivid imagery of these stories was reinforced for Bozó growing up in Hungary in the late nineties and early aughts, when animation studios proliferated and cartoons flourished in the country following the 1989 fall of Communism. A centerpiece of the show is “A Krampusz Ölelése” (2021) a multi-pieced work that will hang assembled from a central column of the gallery’s exhibition space. Composed of fourteen separate canvases, the work depicts a grinning creature wrapping itself around the pillar. Krampus, perhaps one of the most well-known characters of Hungarian folklore, is a devilish figure who appears to frighten misbehaving children around the Christmas holiday season. In Bozó’s version, the patchworked being appears to offer a somewhat friendlier persona, though its dozens of pointy, sharpened teeth still give one pause about accepting its hug. Info: Almine Rech Gallery, Abdijstraat 20 rue de l’Abbaye, Bruxelles, Belgium, Duration: 9/12/2021-15/1/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.alminerech.com

Named after the book of the same name by Marguerite Duras the exhibition “La Vie matérielle” is a dialogue between 12 Italian and Belgian artists on the link between art and life. Both Duras’ book and the works in the exhibition are defined by a constant dialogue between ordinary everyday life (of which the body is a crucial element) and the inner, intimate life, torn between its deepest aspirations and reality. By reusing, hybridising, diverting or decontextualizing organic materials and everyday objects and giving them a new life that transcends their usual use, the artists in the exhibition bridge the divide between artistic disciplines. Despite their very different approaches and perceptions, what Chiara Camoni, Alice Cattaneo, Elena El Asmar, Serena Fineschi, Ludovica Gioscia, Loredana Longo, Claudia Losi and Sabrina Mezzaqui have in common is the use of often modest materials that are traditionally associated with crafts. They are joined by Léa Belooussovitch, Gwendoline Robin, Lieve Van Stappen, Arlette Vermeiren, four Belgian artists whose artistic practices are close to those of their Italian counterparts. All of them seek a “refuge” for the “self” in the world, inspired the regeneration of objects and materials that are dear to them. Info: Curators: Marina Dacci and Carine Fol, Centrale for contemporary art, Place Sainte-Catherine 44, Brussels, Belgium, Duration: 9/12/2021-13/2/2022, Days & Hours: Wed-sun 10:30-18:00, https://centrale.brussels

The exhibition title “I’m not interested in adding anything to the overall thing” can certainly be understood as the underlying principle of Oliver van den Berg’s artistic approach. He has never been interested in things that yearn to be something new or unknown. Rather, he is inspired by existing phenomena and objects, which he seeks to pay homage to in whatever form of repetition. Oliver van den Berg’s objects are variations, deformations, accumulations, reductions, citations, encirclings, juxtapositions, imitations of what’s given. Even if his sculptural approach concerns representation, repetition, imitation, the forms he creates in his work are always his own. In the current exhibition are on presention for the first time the works “Transmitterwand” (2012) and “Linie größter Vergangenheit und Zukunft (Radar)” (2014). Info: Kuckei + Kuckei, Linienstraße 158 & Linienstraße 107/108, Berlin, Germany, Duration: 10/12/2021-29/1/2022, Days & Hours: Wed-Sat 12:00-18:00, www.kuckei-kuckei.de

The paintings of Maryam Hoseini in her solo hibition “I Promise To Be Good” share a common world. Figures repeat across distinct canvases and situations as if in a dream or a film. Their positions encompass the violent, the erotic, and anything in between. Stylistically flat, with figures overlapping and sometimes blending into landscapes and backgrounds, Hoseini’s paintings bear a relationship to the pixelations and squares of color that form our contemporary digital visuality. Yet the paintings don’t make it easy to lay the tablecloth of narrative over their bumpy tabletop. Instead of a narrative, Hoseini’s exhibition is an anagram: it can be taken apart and put together in different ways. The new paintings are just as ambiguous. In purplish rooms, with glasses of wine and champagne all around, figures are animalistically contorted. Like whole chickens trussed to be roasted their limbs appear fowlish. In some paintings they look like they’re on yoga mats but it is unclear whether or not they’re stretching or being tortured. Info: Deborah Schamoni, Mauerkircherstr. 186, Munich, Germany, Duration: 12/12/2021-19/2/2022, Days & Hours: Wed-Fri 12:00-18:00, Sat 12:00-16:00, http://deborahschamoni.com

The exhibition “The Smell of Eucalyptus” presents sculpture and works on paper by Louise Bourgeois, The exhibition’s title, which comes from one of the works in the show, underlines the central importance of memory, the cycles of nature, and the five senses in Bourgeois’ late work. As a young woman in the late 1920s, Bourgeois took care of her sick mother in the South of France, and often used eucalyptus oil for its medicinal properties. Eucalyptus thus came to signify her relationship with her mother, and for the maternal identification that comes to the fore in Bourgeois’ old age. It also attests to her belief in the power of a sensory trigger to precipitate an act of recall and bring the past to life (the artist used to burn eucalyptus in the studio to clear the air). Lastly, it is a metaphor for the therapeutic function of art for Bourgeois. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the suite “Turning Inwards #4”, which belongs to a major body of works on paper that Bourgeois developed in her final decade. Consisting of 39 large soft-ground etchings, the suite showcases the full range of iconography that Bourgeois explored at this time. Info:  Kukje Gallery-K1& Kukje Gallery-K2, 54 Samcheong-ro, Jongno-gu Seoul, Korea, Duration: 16/12/2021-30/1/2022, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-18:00, Sun 10:00-17:00, www.kukjegallery.com

“Fugue” takes its name from the psychological counterpart of “fuga, which derives from the Latin “fuga,” meaning “to fly.” The phenomenon of “dissociative fugue,” from which Başak Bugay gains inspiration, carries the traces of amnesia, a type of memory loss, and indicates the separation, or fleeing from one’s identity. The mixed-media sculptures and ink drawings in the exhibition put on the stage figures suspended in their inner worlds, as in purgatory, as in dreams that are thought to be real. The gallery creates a timeless and subconscious space for visitors, leading to an illusion of happening in between dream and reality, whilst protecting the inside from the outside. One of the main fields that feeds Başak Bugay’s artistic practice is psychology, and the concept of fugue that she focuses on in this exhibition holds critical importance for the artist to understand the violent and bullying tendencies in the individual and society. The phenomenon at the center of the exhibition expresses the escape from one’s self as well as from reality when triggered by a despair that might have similarities to one experienced in the past. The artist makes visible such moments of “flight from reality” via self-isolating sculptures. She characterizes the act of creating mental space for oneself not only as a personal, but also as a social pathology. Info: Zilberman Gallery, İstiklal Cad. No.163 Mısır Apartmanı K.3, Beyoğlu / Istanbul, turkey, Duration: 16/12/2021-20/2/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, www.zilbermangallery.com

Didem Erk creates the exhibition “The Blue Ballad” by dwelling upon such topics as displacement, placelessness and timelessness, roots, memory, and language. Erk, merges these concepts into her installation using five senses and elements.
The exhibition which can be followed in two parts, consists in the first place, a bastion, soil, and a manuscript sheet full of memories, all of which represent the spirit of space and objects, reflecting the heavy weight migration and pain imposes in the mind. One of the artist’s ongoing works, “Almost Blue” series, involving found objects from the sea, also serves as an integrating element in the exhibition. In addition, at the action table in the space, letters that Erk collected from around Beyoglu can be found. Erk reminds us of dichotomies such as leaving or staying, being safe or in danger, dis/owning property, freedom or possessing by using her own methods to manipulate the letters written in different languages. Info: Zilberman Gallery Project Space, İstiklal Cad. No.163 Mısır Apartmanı K.2 D.5, Beyoğlu / Istanbul, Turkey, Duration: 16/12/2021-12/2/2022, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, , www.zilbermangallery.com

Since 2005, Charles Lim Yi Yong’s ongoing project SEA STATE examines the biophysical, political and psychic contours of Singapore through the visible and invisible lenses of the sea. The exhibition “Staggered Observations of a Coast” extends on this vigorous enquiry and centres on the idea of “staggered observations” as an entry point for accessing the exhibition’s propositions. For half a year, Lim sailed all along the east coast anchorage of Singapore. Professionally trained in sailing, the artist applied his sense of staggered observation during these trips.  As Singapore is located at the equator, we experience a phenomena known as wind doldrums (also known as the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone), where the winds from the Northern and Southern hemispheres collide and cancel each other out, causing a state of stillness. As a result, there is seemingly nothing taking place. Info: STPI Gallery, 41 Robertson Quay, Singapore, Duration: 17/12/2021-30/1/2022, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10;00-19:00, Sat 9:00-18:00, Sun 10:00-17:00, www.stpi.com.sg