The History Place Ivana Jaksic, Verena Landau, Des Lawrence, Jochen Plogsties, Miha Strukelj, Miriam Vlaming, Julia Weck Moti Hasson Gallery is pleased to present "The History Place", an exhibition of seven contemporary painters from different corners of Europe. The underlying connection between the exhibited works is their origin in, or rather a memory of, photographic reality, which serves either as a direct or an imaginative inspiration. The exhibited artists are not interested in hyper-reality but, rather, in painterly interpretations of the collective memory. All of the painters have studied painting in Europe, and this in itself prompts an interesting look into the similarities and differences between the roles of the languages of painting and ideas in unifying Europe. Ivana Jaksic lives and works in Belgrade, capital of Serbia & Montenegro, where she studied painting at the University of Belgrade, and is represented in this exhibition by two paintings from two different bodies of her recent work: the series of paintings, "Clara Schumann" (whose image appeared on one of the most popular bank-notes, the former 100DM), and "Visa" (which refers to the artist's status as a holder of a Serbian-Montenegrin passport). Jaksic's paintings are socially observant, and her interest in these powerful social icons is almost painterly abstract. Des Lawrence's paintings, drawings and text are usually black and white, and often focus on aspects of history, such as in the diptych painting of the Cuban Missile Crisis during the events surrounding the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Lawrence, who lives and works in London, is a graduate of Glasgow School of Art and Goldsmith's College, and is a recent Abby Scholar in Painting at the British School in Rome. Miha Strukelj lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts. His work has been shown in many recent group and solo shows in Europe, and his paintings have been included in "Vitamin P (New Perspectives in Painting)," Phaidon Press, 2002. This exhibition features Strukelj's paintings of the Chernobyl disaster. Both, Verena Landau and Miriam Vlaming were born in Düsseldorf and arrived in Leipzig in the early 1990's, where they studied at the HGB: the Leipzig Academy of Visual Arts. Following a three-year immersion in the techniques of the Old Masters in an art school in Florence, Landau relocated to Leipzig, where she now lives and works, in order to study painting and graphics with Arno Rink. Her series of paintings are often subtly interwoven with specific neo-realistic film-stills (such as from Pasolini movies), thereby amplifying her interest in painterly space. Exhibited here are Landau's paintings from her Passover series. Vlaming, who now lives and works in Berlin, studied first graphic and book art with Rink, and then painting with Rink and Rauch. For Vlaming, the painting is an incompletion, the surface flat and soft, with the palette reduced to a chalky quality. Two paintings in this exhibition are from her latest series of works, "Living the Dream". Both of these paintings, uncharacteristically for her oeuvre, refer to photographs found while she was living in Columbus, Ohio. Jochen Plogsties and Julia Weck are both enrolled in graduate studies with Rink and Rauch, and both recently had their first exhibitions in Leipzig. Locally known as a "museum painter", Plogsties's paintings are mementos of buildings and monuments that have significant national importance, such as the former East German Parliament building in Berlin, Palast der Republik, a monument to Goethe, and similar structures. Weck's work is more fictional than that of Plogsties, yet it, too, is historically significant and interpretational. Curated by Goran Tomcic. Exhibition: January 26 - March 4, 2006 Gallery hours: Mon-Sat 10am - 6pm or by appointment Moti Hasson Gallery 330 West 38th St. Suite 211 USA-New York, NY 10018 Telephone +1 212 268-4444 Fax +1 212 268-4944 Email info@motihasson.com www.motihasson.com |
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