Modern Talk, La Transavanguardia, and Koen Vanmechelen – Diversity First
October 26–December 4, 2016
Opening: Sunday, October 23, 2:30–6pm
Deweer Gallery
Tiegemstraat 6A
8553 Otegem
Belgium
www.deweergallery.com
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Modern Talk: Günther Förg / Melissa Gordon, Thomas Kratz & George Little
In its relentless quest for strong, emerging personalities in painting from the international scene, Deweer Gallery started collaborations with artists such as Melissa Gordon, George Little and Thomas Kratz, all in recent years. Each of these artists were presented to our public with a solo exhibition; Melissa Gordon recently held her second solo show at the gallery. A close collaboration with artists naturally leads towards a better understanding of their mentality and approach. In the case of the aforementioned painters, the impression soon rose that all three of them had “something” in common, in a totally different way but unmistakably, with the work of Günther Förg. The result is Modern Talk, a spontaneous, intimate but very surprising exhibition; some sort of visual conversation about the modernist discourse and how to keep it alive.
La Transavanguardia
The Transavanguardia, one of Italy’s most important postwar artistic movements, was part of an international revival of expressionist painting in the late 1970s and 1980s. The term, which literally means “beyond the avant-garde,” was coined by critic Achille Bonito Oliva in 1979. He wrote: “The trans-avant-garde rejects the idea of an artistic process aimed entirely at conceptual abstraction. It introduces the possibility of not considering the linear course of earlier art as final…” In the beginning of the 80s Deweer Gallery was the first Belgian gallery to introduce the Italian Transavanguardia. The gallery is proud to be able to respond to a renewed interest in this historical movement by presenting a retrospective show featuring works—all of them available—not only by leading Transavanguardia artists Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi, Giuseppte Gallo and Mimmo Paladino but also by Domenico Bianchi and Gianni Dessì
Diversity First: Koen Vanmechelen – Collector’s Room #13
Since 2000 Koen Vanmechelen is mainly engaged in his gigantic chicken breeding Cosmopolitan Chicken Project.
The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project is a worldwide breeding project to which the crossbreeding of different national chicken races is central and crucial. The crossbreeding as the metaphorical quintessence of the dynamic, fertile and creative life and of the peaceful living together of different species and races.
In the millennium year 2000, Vanmechelen presented his first “crossing,” the Mechelse Bresse, a “crossing” born out of the Belgian species Mechelse Koekoek and the French Poulet de Bresse. At this moment the 20th species, the Mechelse Wyandotte, is a fact. To date, 20 countries have been included in the CCP.
From the project spring great sculptures, chicken portraits, drawings, installations, stuffed chickens, story boards, videos, etc.
