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JAMES ENSOR, TOMASZ KOWALSKI,

JONATHAN MEESE, TAL R,

FRANZ WEST

Everything and More

24 October - 30 November, 2013

Tim Van Laere Gallery is pleased to present “Everything and More”, a group exhibition with James Ensor, Tomasz Kowalski, Jonathan Meese, Tal R and Franz West, from October 24 to November 30, 2013. The show lives up to its title, as the all-powerful works come to terms with the art history that anticipated them, and for sure transmit their love for art.
 
Long considered a marginal eccentric as he stood apart from other artists of his time, beloved on a need-to-know basis, James Ensor (° Ostend, 1860 - ✝ Ostend, 1949) significantly influenced generations of later artists. His relevance for contemporary artists today was already noted before in recent solo exhibitions at MoMa and Musée d’Orsay and his painting 'Démon' will rise to the occasion in this group show.
 
Tomasz Kowalski's (° Szczebrzeszyn, Poland 1984; lives and works in Krakow and Szczebrzeszyn) idiosyncratic iconography and personal imagination, lends his imagery an enigmatic and psychedelic quality. Using painting as his chosen communicative tool, he journeys to a past with rather generous boundaries, crowded with the most famous masters of German Expressionism, pioneers of the geometric abstract art, Dadaïsm and Surrealism. His work has been exhibited in solo shows at Centre for Contempory Art Ujazdowskie Castle, Warsaw, Poland in 2011; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany in 2009 and also in group shows at Kunsthalle Wien; De Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands; MUMOK - Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Wien, Austria; S.M.A.K. Ghent, Belgium; De Garage, Mechelen, Belgium, Center for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, Germany.
 
Jonathan Meese (° Tokyo, Japan 1970; lives and works in Berlin and Hamburg) is renowned for his multi-faceted work, including wildly exuberant paintings, installations, ecstatic performances and a powerful body of sculptures in a variety of media. All of Meese's work is driven and supported by a striving for a rule of art, the dictatorship of art. Jonathan Meese has exhibited globally with museums and leading art galleries including solo shows at Gem, The Hague; CAC Málaga, Málaga; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; De Appel Center for Contemporary Art, Amsterdam; group shows at Museu de Arte de São Paulo, São Paulo; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow; MARTa Herford, Herford; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Saatchi Gallery, London; MoMA PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York.
 
The duality of Tal R’s (° Tel Aviv, Israel 1967; lives and works in Copenhagen) heritage is recognized in his work, which offers sensations both celebratory and sinister. His subject matter is intentionally easy to describe, but meaning, as in dreams, is enigmatic. Tal works with a variety of media (collage, sculpture, installation, painting) and intuitively culls imagery from diverse sources. Historical and art historical references abound: threads of Expressionism, Fauvism, and Symbolism run throughout, as do nods to traditional Scandinavian art, Art Nouveau, and outsider or children’s art. Selected exhibitions: Sugar Paintings, Sugar Club, Copenhagen; Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Humlebaek, Denmark; Arts Center of Givat Haviva, Israel; Street Sharks Biennial, Copenhagen; Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen; Horsens Kunstmuseum, Horsens, Denmark; Royal Academy of Arts, London; Kunsthalle Wien; Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (together with Jonathan Meese); Kunsthalle Mannheim; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.
 
The renowned Austrian artist Franz West (° Vienna, Austria 1947, ✝ 2012 Vienna, Austria), who has taken part in just about every major international group exhibition of the last 20 years, was without doubt one of the most important contemporary sculptors and environment artists. His artwork is remarkable not only for the creativity of the forms he invents but also for the communicative quality with which he directly addresses the viewer, urging him or her to participate.  His sculptures tend to elude naming or classification. West supplements these constructions - reminiscent of torsos, shapeless lumps, or mutant growths - with his own writings or reformulations of artist and writer friends, extending the sculptural expression in textual form without illustrating or explaining it. Since 1970 international exhibitions in galleries and museums, e.g. Documenta IX (1992), Documenta X (1997), Sculpture Project Münster (1997), Venice Biennial (1988, 1993, 1997, 2003, 2011); Lincoln Center & Doris C. Freedman Plaza, New York, Whitechapel Gallery, London, Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Museum of Modern Art, New York.





 

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