Koen van den Broek
dal 26/11/2001 al 1/12/2001
Segnalato da
26/11/2001
Koen van den Broek
White Cube, London
White Cube is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by Belgian painter Koen van den Broek. This is his first solo exhibition in the UK and will present a series of 'Border' paintings, large scale canvases that employ flat, un-modulated areas of colour which veer between figuration and abstraction. The work has largely evolved from the artist's interest in desolate urban landscapes, and, in particular, places that he has passed through on his travels throughout America.
Borders
White Cube is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings by Belgian painter Koen van den Broek.
This is his first solo exhibition in the UK and will present a series of 'Border' paintings, large scale
canvases that employ flat, un-modulated areas of colour which veer between figuration and
abstraction.
The work has largely evolved from the artist's interest in desolate urban landscapes,
and, in particular, places that he has passed through on his travels throughout America.
Van den Broek has said that 'absence plays a bigger part in my work than presence', and although
his canvases seem empty as all preliminary surface details are left out, their exaggerated diagonal
compositions are dynamic, often with vanishing perspectives cutting through the rectangular plane of
the canvas.
Although Van den Broek takes hundreds of photographs and often uses a snapshot as the starting
point for his more figurative paintings, his series of 'Border' paintings with their bright, crisp palette of
primary colours have developed out of an attempt to resist an identifiable subject in itself, focusing
instead on boundaries such as the wall of a house and the road or the edge of an urban sidewalk.
They intimate a journey somewhere but the destination is unresolved. Instead, the border acts as a
divide on the canvas itself; a re-presentation of its function in the landscape.
Visually arresting,
these works direct the viewer's gaze away from the canvas to a distant point beyond the depicted
field, creating what has been called 'a visual confusion regarding depth and perspective'.
Van den Broek has recently spent time in LA and the sharp, angled environments of the North
American interstate system are echoed in works such as 'California', (1999), which flatly depicts a
highway, or 'Gate', (1999), a grand engineering project which seems devoid of the human presence
that has dreamt it up. Equally important are the forgotten, bleak urban cores which are portrayed in
works such as 'Chinese Theatre, Hollywood', (1999), or 'Cohesion', (2000), both of which have the
sinister atmosphere of an Edward Hopper painting.
Unlike Hopper, however, Van den Broek is
reluctant to place any human presence in his fragmented scenes.
Van den Broek's images illustrate
the classic American dream - large swathes of industrial-scale agriculture, engineering structures
which are designed to change the entire focus of a city and the endless interstate system - a
continual road leading to nowhere.
Koen van den Broek lives and works in Antwerp. He has recently exhibited at Palais des Beaux Arts
in Brussels and Museum van het Provinciaal Centrum voor Beeldende Kunsten, Begijnhof, Hasselt,
Belgium.
For further information please contact Alexandra Bradley or Honey Luard
on 020 7930 5373.
Preview Tuesday 27th November 6-8pm
28.11.01 - 12.01.02
Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am-6pm.
White Cube
44 Duke Street, St James's, London SW1Y 6DD