Month: March 2010
Copenhagen Graffiti (Walls)
Jenny Holzer @ BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
Allison Cortson
The Happy Lion is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Allison Cortson. Using her friends as subjects, Cortson’s intimate portraits are exquisitely rendered using her signature materials of dust and oil. Cortson gathers dust from the environments pictured and re-situates her subjects in the reconstituted spaces. Cortson has also added powered paint to her repertoire of particles, with several works using this material in place of dust. Allison’s unique approach to representation results in portraits that feel concrete yet ephemeral, evoking the timelessness of matter. Allison Cortson was born in Santa Monica, California. She received her B.A. in Art from the University of California, Los Angeles and her MFA from the California Institute for the Arts. She has had solo shows at Galerie Michael Janssen in Berlin, Germany and at Galerie Filomena Soares in Lisbon, Portugal. Recent group exhibitions include Painting a Better Present, Pictures from the Diezy7 Collection at Sala Naos, Santander, Spain and L.A. Potential, at HangART-7, in Salzburg, Austria. Allison Cortson lives and works in Los Angeles.
Seen//THE KING
Studio visit//Andreas Schulenburg
KUP// Hans Alf
Fade Into You//
‘Dear …….,’.
As a newcomer in the Danish artworld I am unqualified to curate an exhibition of Danish painting. This is the premise of the exhibition ‘Dear …….,’.
I selected a painter based in Denmark and sent them the following letter of invitation.
‘Dear …….,
I am putting together a show of ‘Danish’ painters. It will work as a game of tag. As a newcomer here I am outside the history and politics, gossip and rumour of the Danish art world. Which in many ways is a great benefit and in others a disadvantage. This exhibition will acknowledge my naivety and release me from my usual dictatorial position of choice within my gallery. I am handing over responsibility of choice to the artists. It will give me a crash course in contemporary Danish painting (hopefully).
It will work like this – I will choose a painter who lives and works in Denmark, then, they will anonymously choose a painter who lives and works in Denmark, then, they will anonymously choose a painter who lives and works in Denmark. etc. This will carry on until the same painter is chosen twice or somebody says no. So, the show will be a random, meandering journey through what is being made here. I will then curate the show by visiting each artists studio and selecting the work(s) to be shown. These might be brand new or earlier works. The show will open here early March (March 5th).
You have been anonymously selected by another painter to be in the show. All you have to do is say yes to being in the show and choose someone else to be in the show. I will then approach them and send them this text. You can select anyone painting here in Denmark now. Someone you think represents what is happening now, or is forgotten, or overlooked, or needs reappraising, or deserves their first break, or is busy showing but their work is so great we should show it some more…just remember that they will then anonymously select someone else.
