Stefan Gec / Kasimir Malevich
Philipp Goldbach / Alexander Rodchenko
Werner Haypeter / Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart
Sarah Oppenheimer / Naum Gabo
Annely Juda Fine Art is delighted to announce the launch of its first exclusively online exhibition entitled In Response To…, in which four contemporary artists ‘respond to’ a work of the twentieth-century avant-garde. The exhibition will launch on April 28th and will remain ‘open’ until June 13th 2020.
The influence of a particular artist, group or movement on a single artist can have a profound effect on their work or indeed be fundamental to their practice. It could be argued that all art exists thanks to the influence of another’s work, be it contemporary or historical. Now, with a wealth of accessible art history at our fingertips, it is difficult to argue that artwork can exist truly in isolation of what has come before. Artists often belong to groups that share a common idea or approach or make reference to an artist or artwork, explicitly or not.
Our gallery has a history of showing both contemporary work and works of the twentieth-century avant-garde. We asked four of our contemporary artists to respond to a particular artist of the twentieth century avant-garde; to discuss their work in a format of their choosing and to show how it has (or hasn’t) influenced their work. The four artists have responded in different ways; via poetic musings, short essays, a letter and video. The contemporary artists also share recent works of theirs via images and videos.
Philipp Goldbach works with photographic processes and materials and is heavily influenced by the history of photography. By using outmoded technologies, he re-examines the process of acquiring knowledge and storage of memory in an ever-technologically-advancing world. Here, Goldbach looks at the work of Alexander Rodchenko, especially the photographic portraits of Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Werner Haypeter's work unites the aesthetic of mass production with the geometric concerns and theories of Modernism. Initially, Haypeter's art appears to be a straightforward geometric use of industrial material. This illusion is however altered by Haypeter's artistic intervention. For this online exhibition, Haypeter responds to the work of Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart. A German abstract painter, Vordemberge-Gildewart joined the De Stijl group in 1924 along with other artists such as Mondrian and Van Doesburg. Haypeter presents a collection of Vordemberge-Gildewart’s quotes along with his own musings on his work. He also presents work from his own (temporarily closed) exhibition at Künstlerforum Bonn.
Stefan Gec’s work is both abstract and loaded, with complex constructions and models. Recent work is presented here from his 2019 exhibition at the John Hansard Gallery, which centred around the artist’s fascination with top-secret maps of strategic cities worldwide that were created by Soviet intelligence during the Cold War, whilst also investigating his Ukranian heritage. Gec responds to the work of Kasimir Malevich, a leading figure in the Russian avant-garde who was born in Kiev, now Ukraine. Here, Gec has penned a letter to Kasimir Malevich, also translated into Ukrainian.
Sarah Oppenheimer is an architectural manipulator. She creates apertures and extensions in buildings or walls, modifying familiar spaces with dramatic and disorientating interventions. More recent work has included moving elements that add to the work’s ability to challenge our understanding of architectural space. Here, Oppenheimer looks at the work of Naum Gabo, specifically the motorised sculpture ‘Kinetic Construction (Standing Wave)’ 1919-20 whilst presenting images and videos of her (temporarily closed) exhibition at Kunstmuseum Thun.
