Robert Zandvliet
SEVEN STONES
 
Bernhard Knaus Fine Art:
May 15th until July 27th 2013
 
Robert Zandvliet (born 1970, living in Rotterdam)
 
The artists latest works focus on stones. Inspired by “Pierres”, a book written by the French surrealist Roger Caillois which speaks of the internal memory inherent to crystals and minerals enabled Zandvliet to discover the poetic potential that lingers in the structures, as well as, the drawings of such stones. Caillois is particularly drawn to the more corrupted specimens: septarian and other lesser minerals.
 
He rejects purity, that which determines the stone‘s worth, as it leaves no trace, tells no tale. In the “drawn” stones however, nature’s signature leaves its mark which Callois recognizes with an almost pantheist fascination as art in itself. Whether a stone or a sculptured object stems from aesthetic edifications is not a concern of Callois'." These traces, on the other hand, are what interest Zandvliet most.
 
Address:
Niddastrasse 84
60329 Frankfurt am Main
 
Opening hours:
Mon- Fri: 13:00 - 18:00
Sat: 11:00- 15:00
 
Telephone: 069 / 244 507 68
Email: knaus@bernhardknaus-art.de
 
Webpage: www.bernhardknaus-art.de/Robert_Zandvliet_E.html‎
 
Article about the exhibition:
blogs.artinfo.com/berlinartbrief/2013/05/16/painter-robert-zandvliet-on-dropping-art-history-for-the-simplicity-of-stones/

WALD | Landscapes of Memory
 
are the deep memories we carry within us. They are the mythological images of our childhood, the ones from fairy tales, the Romantic paintings. They are the collective deep memories of the historic forest, remembered and stored in the cells and genes for centuries. Images we where born with, which accompany us through life until we die.
 
“Landscapes are culture before they are nature, constructs of the imagination that are projected onto woods and water and rock.” Landscapes do not exist per se. They are created by the artist; only through his perception and perspective in combination of multitudes of elements like the weather, light, the trees, shrubs, grass, moss an image is created.
 
Two levels are being brought into accord in the pictures – the experience of nature and deep, remembered landscapes.
 
This project was determined by the questions how silence can be depicted in an image and how to approach the elusive, ephemeral realm. The woods and the twilight are the medium for this silence, for an open image that leaves space for the own associations and phantasies.
 
The photographs from the series WALD decelerate the beholder and give him peace. They create a connection with the inner space of silence. A silence that is always there, that everyone carries within himself; but which is usually cluttered with the constantly challenging demands and impressions of everyday life.
 
Michael Lange Simon Schama

MERRY COMPANY
BUCK ELLISON
HENRIK OLAI KAARSTEIN
 
CURATED BY DIETMAR MEZLER
 
Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf is pleased to present works by Buck Ellison and Henrik Olai Kaarstein, both students at the Städelschule. The exhibition title Merry Company refers to 17th century Dutch genre paintings, which depicted feasts and drinking bouts in bourgeois homes. On one hand, these paintings depict the wealth and social status of their patrons; on the other hand, they criticize the dissolute lifestyle of this class through the use of symbols and metaphors.
 
In photographs of Buck Ellison you will often find motifs that reflect on the contradictions and ambivalences of bourgeois identity. Ellison’s images confront the viewer with the aesthetics of advertising photographs, but also disrupt this in a subtle way. For example, in Ethical Culture, 2013 the artist photographed in Berlin's luxurious department store KaDeWe, where exotic fish species are displayed as luxury goods. Even though the work reminds the viewer of Golden Age Dutch still lives, it simultaneously comments on today’s globalized market economy, where food and products from almost anywhere are available for a solvent group of buyers at any time. Similarly ambiguous is the work Untitled (Hands), 2012 – the reason for the applause remains a mystery; the clapping hand seems to become a mere self-pleasing institutional gesture.
 
Henrik Olai Kaarstein is a collector; he gathers objects and items which can be found in any ordinary home - including shower curtains, plastic flowers, furniture, towels or napkins. In itself, they are neither valuable nor sentimentally-charged objects, and yet the human presence is always felt. In the works of Kaarstein, which shift between sculpture, painting and collage, these items undergo a metamorphosis. Thus, in the work Happy Birthday Morning, Mr. President, 2012, the found shower curtain, on the one hand, becomes a work of art due to its formal and material qualities; on the other hand, its original function as a commodity resonates within the associative aura, which is further enhanced by the title.
 
Buck Ellison (1987, San Francisco) studied Fine Arts at Columbia University in New York and is currently a student at the Städelschule in the class of Willem de Rooij. Henrik Olai Kaarstein ( 1989, Oslo) was a student at Norland College of Art and Film and also studies at the Städelschule in Willem de Rooij’s class.