The Line According To: August 29- September 9, 2008

To view works by Roland Albert in this exhibition click HERE.

if ART

presents at

Gallery 80808/Vista Studios

808 Lady St., Columbia, S.C.

THE LINE ACCORDING TO

Roland Albert – Mary Gilkerson – Sjaak Korsten 

&

Kees Salentijn

August 29 – September 9, 2008

Artists’ Reception: Friday, August 29, 2008, 5 – 10 p.m.

Opening Hours:

Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Sundays, 1 – 5 p.m.

Weekdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. and by appointment

For more information, contact Wim Roefs at if ART:

(803) 238-2351/255-0068 – wroefs@sc.rr.com

For its August – September exhibition, if ART presents at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios The Line According to Roland Albert, Mary Gilkerson, Sjaak Korsten & Kees Salentijn. German artist Albert will present mixed media, mostly wood-based sculptures, and Columbia’s Gilkerson, a new series of monotypes. Dutch painter Salentijn will show paintings, mixed media works on paper, painted ceramic plates, lithographs and silkscreens. Korsten, another Dutch artist, will show mixed media works on paper. Korsten has recently joined if ART Gallery, and the upcoming exhibition will be his first in the United States.

Albert (b. 1944) is a widely respected painter and sculptor in Germany. He is part of the artists’ exchange between Columbia and its German sister city of Kaiserslautern. Albert studied with the famous Greek-American sculptor Kosta Alex in Paris in 1964. In 1970, he graduated from the prestigious Munich Academy of Fine Arts. Albert’s work overall fits European post-World War II contemporary traditions. He shares Joseph Beuys’ love for rough and unfinished materials. Like Art Informel artists such as Spaniard Antoni Tapies and fellow German Emil Schumacher, Albert considers not just forms and shapes important but also the tactile and physical quality of his materials.

Gilkerson (b. 1958) has recently completed monotypes for her Three River series based on Columbia’s Congaree, Saluda and Broad rivers. The sometimes strongly abstracted works are based on photos and drawings Gilkerson made earlier this year during walks along the riverbanks. Gilkerson for many years has been prominent on the art scene of the South Carolina Midlands as an artist, critic and curator. She teaches art at Columbia College in her hometown of Columbia. Gilkerson holds BFA, MA and MFA degrees from the University of South Carolina.

Korsten (b. 1957) is widely known and respected in the Netherlands. Not unlike Albert, he works in established post-World War II European modern and contemporary traditions. His work is related to Art Informel artists such as Tapies, Jaap Wagemaker, Wols, Jean Fautrier and Manalo Millares. Much of the focus in their work and that of Korsten is on materials and surface. While Korsten’s work is heavily abstracted, he typically includes representative elements. Korsten’s work has been shown at major European fairs, including TEFAF Maastricht, PAN Amsterdam and the Cologne Art Fair.

Salentijn (b. 1947) is among The Netherlands’ most prominent painters. The initial inspiration leading to his mature style came from post-war American art and from Spanish painters such as Tapies, Antonio Saura, and later Millares. Salentijn developed a personal style that combined the expressionist, painterly swath with smaller but equally expressionist marks that are quick and slightly nervous but sure. Combining vigorous painting with often-childlike imagery, Salentijn’s work eventually placed him in the Northern European, post-war CoBrA tradition of strongly expressionist, abstracted art that containes representational elements. Salentijn’s increased use of figuration in the 1990s confirmed this link. His work is in several European museums. In addition to the 1982 Chicago Art Fair, his work has been represented at major European art fairs, including Art Fair Basel, TEFAF Maastricht, Kunstmesse Cologne and KunstRAI Amsterdam.

Essay: Roland Albert

Paar, 2003

Wood, sand, glue

5 ½ x 19 ¼ x 3 ½ in.

$ 650

ROLAND ALBERT 

By Wim Roefs

Roland Albert’s often material-driven art that hovers between abstraction and figuration, between the natural and arranged worlds, between representing something and being something, and between material and psychological existence.

Albert’s work overall fits European post-World War II contemporary traditions. He shares Joseph Beuys’ love for rough and unfinished materials. Like Art Informel artists such as Spaniard Antoni Tapies and fellow German Emil Schumacher, Albert considers not just forms and shapes important but also the tactility and physical quality of his materials. He shares Paul Klee’s playfulness and back-and-forth between figuration and abstraction. His spontaneous impulse and some imagery relate to Jean Dubuffet and CoBrA painters such as Dutchmen Karel Appel and Corneille. 

Combining the architectural with the natural in his sculpture links him to the 1960s German art group Zero, which included Otto Piene and Günther Uecker. Zero was part of a larger network of European artists, including the Dutch Nul Groep with Jan Schoonhoven and Armando, Lucio Fontana in Italy, Jean Tinguely and Arman in France and Tapies again. These artists practiced an art that started from scratch, historically, art historically, conceptually and often practically. In the wake of the human disaster that was Fascism and World War II, the artists sought a new beginning, independent of historical and art historical traditions. This included the incorporation of and a focus on non-traditional materials with an often minimalist, geometric or gestural, poetic and metaphysical approach that led to novel aesthetic results. 

Albert molds paint and marks on surface, he says, rather than trying to depict things. He often blurs the boundaries between drawing and painting and painting and sculpting. Heavy application of dirt, plaster and stucco-like materials on his two-dimensional work can make it in effect three-dimensional. And sculpting to Albert is merely painting and drawing in space. 

“I can’t really analyze my own work very well,” Albert says. “I don’t work very systematically but instead mostly follow my spontaneous inner drive.” 

That spontaneous drive leads to the use of not just paint, canvas, bronze and other established media but whatever materials may cross Albert’s path. He draws with shellac or with a combination of glue and sand, including the reddish sand of the Kaiserslautern region. He sculpts with wood and corrugated cardboard. The surfaces of the sculptures in the current show are covered with a mix of glue and sand. 

“Wood typically simply provides the armature to create a certain shape,” Albert says. “It’s often not that important for the look of the work. In addition to glue and sand, I use, for instance, paper and clothe to cover the wood.”

“My objects are based on everyday phenomena. The chair refers to human anatomy, character and temperament. The ladders are symbolic for ascending and descending, coming and going. Architecture represents living and mystique. In exploring the elements, I don’t shoot for representation but for new creations.” 

EXHIBITION PREVIEW

Preview of Roland Albert's work in if ART Gallery's August 29- September 9, 2008 exhibition The Line According To Albert, Gilkerson, Korsten, and Salentijn at Gallery 80808/Vista Studios, 808 Lady Street, Columbia, SC.