Gallery Baton is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of late abstract paintings by Belgian artist Philippe Vandenberg (1952-2009).
Inspired by his lifelong study and idiosyncratic contemplation of literature and philosophy, Philippe Vandenberg explored the manner in which his inner temperament reflected mankind’s spiritual inheritance. His paintings are the outcome of a chain of processes in which external intellectual stimuli enter into a vital dialogue with private emotions.
As an emerging artist, Vandenberg witnessed the rise of Neo-expressionism in Europe and became one of its main representatives in Belgium during the early 1980s. In the mid 90s, he began to engage with meta-discourses on themes such as life and death, materials and the mind, and intellect and emotion. In turn, this led to a series of paintings that were vested in abstraction. This solo show presents a unique selection of Vandenberg’s late abstract works, many of which are being exhibited for the very first time. Made during the last years of his life, they are fundamentally marked by his personal experiences and persistent state of introspection.
Vandenberg’s late abstract works are distinguished by a set of recurring characteristics, including the rough treatment of materials, visible traces of physical movement, multi-layered surfaces and the materialisation of intuitive and subjective sentiments. Rather than carrying a sense of completion, the resulting abstract images declare the end of a certain stage in the artist’s creative process. At the same time, they disclose the primary preoccupations of the artist in his later years, namely the relentless study of his own sensibilities.
For Vandenberg, painting had the capacity to act as a catalyst for introspection, and he hoped that his work would prompt people to ruminate upon their own inner worlds and thoughts, rather than trying to guess the intentions of the artist. Vandenberg believed that abstract art – since it is not constrained by the representation of objects and bodies – was better able to provide an audience with subjective and personal inspiration. Ultimately, this view accorded with his belief, held throughout his life, that artists should never compromise their unique point of view.
‘There is pain in painting: the anguish, the doubt, the panic, the pangs, the obsessive fear of being unable to meet the demands of the canvas…Thus I paint from failure to failure, from hope to hope.’
(Philippe Vandenberg)
While Vandenberg’s artistic faith, convictions and practice were based upon his profound understanding of art historical customs and traditions, he also regarded the latter as targets that needed to be resisted and overcome. This creative anguish translated itself into a particular methodology of painting, which saw Vandenberg constantly recycle his work. He would often take earlier canvases and superimpose newly formed psychological and emotional properties on top of the old. This mode of ‘repainting’ or ‘over-painting’ relates to the artist’s personal struggle with his deeply self-critical nature and his pursuit of the ultimate work of art. Moreover, the densely layered paint surfaces are reminiscent of primitive organisms, or the growth rings in trees, in the sense that they disclose, as it were, the artist’s life-long agony. In addition, simple lines, symbols and sentences, bluntly applied to the canvas, reveal the principal subjects to which the artist was drawn. These two-dimensional compositions of lines and signs can therefore be read as patterns and directives, symbolizing the thoughts, sensations and fascinations of the artist. Despite their minimal appearance, they cry out to be read.
Philippe Vandenberg graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium, with a degree in Literature and the History of Art. By the time of his first solo exhibition in New York in 1986, he was already well known in Europe. One of Belgium’s leading contemporary artists, his work was acquired by Guggenheim Museum and a great many other public collections. Vandenberg’s oeuvre was also the subject of exhibitions in major international galleries and museums during his lifetime, including retrospectives at the Museum of Contemporary Art (S.M.A.K) in Ghent, Belgium (1995) and the Museum of Contemporary Arts (MuHKA) in Antwerp, Belgium (1999). Important posthumous exhibitions have been held at the De Pont Museum in Tilburg, the Netherlands (2012), the Maison Rouge in Paris, France (2014), and at Hauser & Wirth in London (2013) and Zurich (2014).
This exhibition is organised in collaboration with Hauser & Wirth and is curated by Belgian artist Koen van den Broek.
-GB-
Press release courtesy Gallery Baton.
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