Galerie Michael Janssen
Norbertstr. 14 -16, D 50670 Köln
Tel: 0049 (0) 221.1300830
Fax: 0049 (0) 0221.1300831
office@galeriemichaeljanssen.de
http://www.galeriemichaeljanssen.de
Opening Hours:
Tue-Fri 10-13 h, 15-18 h, Sat 12-15 h
Contact:
Michael Janssen, Dane Reinacher
Allison Cortson
Collecting Dust
Opening on Friday, June 02, 6-9 pm, until June 30, 2006
These “dust paintings” invite existential questions and compel the viewer to enter into a unique, mysterious world. With Collecting Dust, Allison Cortson has brought about a conjoining of fine art, philosophy and science with the force of the immediacy of her materials. The solidity of photo-realistic subjects rendered in vibrant oils is surrounded by Cortson’s version of ‘unbearable lightness,’ the utter neutrality of white space, and subtle objects—room furnishings, a music studio, even a Ford Torino—all clearly delineated in dust collected from the various subjects’ personal environments. Captured within an ordinary, everyday moment, a subject is not floating, yet that is the sensation. Here, the once-familiar world becomes a cipher. Dust equals fragility. The viewer can no longer take physical reality for granted; it is instantly tenuous and tentative.
On one level, Cortson’s paintings are a lesson in the processes of matter and space, even making suggestions about time. We know, for example, that matter is mostly empty space. It is then possible that most of what we see is an illusion, or at least a transparency. According to the laws of physics, we humans and everything around us is continually disintegrating and regenerating. But in its quest to reveal truth, science is mostly a beginning, mere intellectual commentary on the natural world. Only art has the power to touch our deepest emotions and hone our insights. […]
- Rosemarie Dimatteo
The Gallery is pleased to announce to participate again at
Art 37 Basel
June 14-18, 2006
Hall 2.1, Booth D 3
We are planning to show new works by Los Angeles based artists Tom Allen and Thaddeus Strode. Japanese Animée Ikon Yoshitaka Amano produced some new aluminium paintings for our booth. Berlin based artist Christoph Steinmeyer presents two big movie related black/white interior oil-on-canvas works, refering to Billy Wilder and Otto Preminger productions of the 1940ties. The German Twin brothers Gert & Uwe Tobias will show new large scale colored woodcuts and we are happy to announce, they will have a solo project at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in September this year. Young painter Allison Cortson from Los Angeles will be presented in Basel for the first time with her dust-paintings and we are pleased to open her first European solo show at the Gallery in Cologne on June 2nd. By German artist Christina Doll we will show her new oversized concrete sculpture ‘Elli’, which represents an antagonism to her fragile porcelaine works. From the new body of work out of colored felt by Thomas Grünfeld we will show pieces from his recent solo show at the gallery. By Dutch photographer Jan Koster his new series‚ The Windows’ – consisting in 23 c-prints – will be presented. The artists Duo Jesse Bercowetz/Matt Bua from New York will have a special appearance at our Art Basel booth with a huge chandelier sculpture / installation, hanging from the ceilling. Also for the first time in Basel, we will show some recent paintings by Hamburg based painter Till Gerhard, with whom we have planned a solo show at the Gallery for September this year. Furthermore we will have new exceptional works by Markus Huemer, Paul Morrison, Enoc Perez, Peter Zimmermann – who will show new large scale paintings out of his first solo museum show in Spain at the CAC Malaga – and Monique van Genderen, who currently has a solo project at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles on view until July 30, 2006.
We are looking very much forward to welcome you at our booth in Basel very soon.
Image caption: Allison Cortson, Sasha and his Dust, 2006, oil on canvas, 183 x 254 cm. Courtesy Gallery Michael Janssen
