Avery Preesman
dal 14/12/2001 al 17/2/2001
Segnalato da
14/12/2001
Avery Preesman
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
"Bedrock". All kinds of ideas incite Preesman to knead, press and push his work. Many of his canvases display a restrained use of colour and parabolic or T-shaped signs which give specific direction to the solid-looking paintings.
Avery Preesman (1968) makes an unconventional
contribution to the Stedelijk's presentations of
contemporary painters, a series that has focused on
Robert Zandvliet and Thomas Scheibitz thus far. In
addition to works on canvas, sculptures feature
prominently in Preesman's exhibition 'Bedrock'.
Rocky ground enclosed, a work-title used by Preesman in
1998 in his studio, inspired his good friend Maarten van
Hinte to write a poem called Bedrock: 'Not just me. Tens.
Hundreds. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of
people washing ashore, layer after layer. Layer after layer
of idle talk, wasted time and spent lives: I, me, mine' (a
fragment from the poem).
The exhibition Bedrock at the Stedelijk presents work
produced since 1997 by Curaçao- born Preesman, whose
work could be seen in Couplet 4 in 1995 and in Sublime
forms with a visibility of 5 m in 1996. In 1992, when
Preesman began to apply himself seriously to painting and
studied at the Ateliers in Amsterdam, he started to make
tramline and stepped paintings. His first wall-sculpture
dates from late 1993, a cement benchlike structure partly
painted brown and derived from the stepped paintings.
All kinds of ideas incite Preesman to knead, press and push
his work. Many of his canvases display a restrained use of
colour and parabolic or T-shaped signs which give specific
direction to the solid-looking paintings. The various layers
often seem to collide with and grate on each other,
setting the figure/ground relationship awry and creating a
kind of three-dimensionality. They bear a certain similarity
to the wall-sculptures: palisade-like (de)constructions of
wood or metal, wrapped in foam-filler and coated with
plaster or a granular layer of chalk-grey sand-cement,
sometimes with applications of greasepaint. These
tectonics give the pieces a heavy, rocklike character, like
basalt. Nevertheless, they take up scarcely any physical
space, their function in the exhibition space seeming
rather to define position. His paintings possess the same
quality; in Bedrock they will be hang together with the
sculptures. The term 'decomposed' painting has been used
in connection with Preesman's work. Enriched with the
canvases and sculptures the four rooms comprising
Bedrock' lose their severe architectural constraints and
something of their definitive character.
Avery Preesman - Bedrock is accompanied by a catalogue
with an essay by Ulrich Loock. Stedelijk Museum Bulletin
no.1 /2002 will carry an interview with the artist
The Stedelijk Museum is open daily: 11.00 am - 5.00 pm (Closed on January 1)
Stedelijk Museum Paulus Potterstraat 13 1070 AB Amsterdam, The Netherlands