Goodman Gallery London presents “Fault Strains”—an exhibition of latest works by Remy Jungerman, marking his first solo presentation within the UK and with the Gallery. The title of the exhibition, “Fault Strains,” refers to “the strain that happens when two supplies are introduced collectively that problem the strict grid strains between textile and kaolin clay, inflicting cracks to look.” Fault Strains is on view from Could 4 to twenty-eight, 2022.
Fault Strains instantly follows a significant survey exhibition at The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam for Jungerman, who’s extensively recognised as one of many Netherlands’ most essential artists having co-represented his nation on the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019.
Jungerman is a part of a era of Afro-Dutch artists whose follow challenges and destabilises Western artwork historic narratives. By initiating a dialogue between summary geometric patterns drawn from a multiplicity of visible traditions, the artist presents a peripheral imaginative and prescient that may inform and enrich views on artwork historical past.
Born in Suriname, the previous Dutch colony in South America, Jungerman is a descendant, on his mom’s aspect, of the Surinamese Maroons who escaped enslavement on Dutch plantations to determine self-governed communities within the Surinamese rainforest. Jungerman honours his indebtedness to the tradition of the Maroons via the act of making.
Throughout his follow, Jungerman attracts parallels between the geometric patterns of textiles indigenous to Maroon tradition and to Modernism, significantly the Dutch pressure epitomized by Piet Mondrian. Connecting, juxtaposing or contrasting cultures is intrinsic to his pursuit of an autonomous visible language, which deftly interweaves the cultures of the nations that outline him: Suriname, the Netherlands and the US.
THE DODECAGONS
The dodecagons—abstracted snakes— serve a protecting perform. These sculptures reference Dagwé – one of many Winti Earth gods from the Afro-Surinamese faith – who manifests himself as a boa constrictor. Dagwé serves a job much like that of a ritually blessed Prasara sibi: a reed broom secured at intervals with crimson, blue, and white ribbon which many Afro-Surinamese individuals place above their entrance doorways to beat back adverse energies.
HORIZONTALS / VERTICALS
Jungerman’s horizontal works are impressed by the non-public areas the place Winti devotees commune with their religious entities. Horizontals are composed of slats of various size, width, and colour, stacked atop each other or connected with small gaps in between. Irrespective of the number of extra parts or seeming randomness of a stack’s composition, the works at all times manifest steadiness. This stems from the Winti custom of striving to realize steadiness with one’s environment.
PANELS
Jungerman’s panels are available numerous sizes and initially recommend work, however they don’t seem to be. The panels are picket and wrapped in plaids British-Ghanaian poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley of varied colors earlier than overlaying them in kaolin. Within the ongoing collection he made in 2020 and 2021, Jungerman adopts a collage-like strategy, gluing strips of kaolin handled cloth to a primed floor. Every strip appears to evoke the subsequent, yielding a rhythmic pulse harking back to the repeating sound patterns of the Agida drum—utilized in Winti rituals— or jazz.
CUBES
Jungerman’s dice works differ in dimension, within the variety of stacked cubes, in the best way the hole is stuffed, and within the extent to which the kaolin is handled or modified. The method of creating these works is a ritual act: he generally encloses items of material in a dice, different occasions recollections or feelings. Regardless of the austere geometric type of these works, additionally they embrace substantive references. The nails symbolize religious energy, the bottles and shards from a damaged gin jar consult with libations.
Remy Jungerman (1959) attended the Academy for Increased Arts and Cultural Research in Paramaribo, Surinam, earlier than transferring to Amsterdam the place he studied on the Gerrit Rietveld Academy.
In his work, Jungerman explores the intersection of sample and image in Surinamese Maroon tradition, the bigger African diaspora, and twentieth century Modernism, putting fragments of Maroon textiles and different supplies discovered within the African diaspora—the kaolin clay utilized in a number of spiritual traditions or the nails featured in Nkisi Nkondi energy sculpture—in direct contact with supplies and imagery drawn from extra “established” artwork traditions, Jungerman presents a peripheral imaginative and prescient that each enriches and informs our perspective on artwork historical past.
Jungerman represented the Netherlands on the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. In 2017 he was nominated for the Black Achievement Award in The Netherlands. In 2008 he obtained the Fritschy Tradition Award from the Museum het Domein, Sittard, The Netherlands.
Jungerman is co-founder and curator of the Wakaman Challenge, drawing Strains – connecting dots. Wakaman, which suggests “strolling man,” was born out of a need to look at the place of visible artists of Surinamese origin and to lift their profile(s) on the worldwide stage. [. . .]
Jungerman lives and works between Amsterdam and New York.
For extra data, see https://www.goodman-gallery.com/exhibitions/london-gallery-remy-jungerman-fault-lines-2022
[Image above: Remy Jungerman, Pimba AGIDA MADAFO VII, Cotton textile, kaolin (pimba) on wood panel (plywood).]