Juxtapoz Magazine – Venom, Bergeron and Franzese “A Birdcage, Until Further Notice” @ Gallery Poulsen, Copenhagen

For some time, Jud Bergeron and Gallery Poulsen have been looking into how we can place jointly an exhibition that provides a new dimension to the gallery. Gallery Poulsen is notably oriented toward the figurative features of the art planet but when they invited Jud Bergeron onboard we also invited the abstract minimalism in its three-dimensional form which acts as a url amongst figurative art and abstract art although also getting a way for them to include things like the physical space in our exhibitions. A Birdcage, Right up until Further more Discover is the newest addition in their series of invitational exhibits exactly where one particular of Gallery Poulsen’s typical artists invites, for us, new artists into the gallery’s room which in flip contributes to the enlargement of our creative being familiar with.

In Bergeron’s sculptures there’s a precise emphasis on the tactile qualities of abstract geometric styles, a aim that is also existing in Ben Venom’s and Gianluca Franzese’s respective do the job with shapes and mixture of elements. Bergeron, Venom, and Franzese all are living and perform in San Francisco, California.

Jud Bergeron’s new collection of sculptures stems from a sequence of wall reliefs that were encouraged by just one of his silkscreen prints created in 2020. Bergeron began to think about the wall reliefs as blocks and began pondering about the origins of sculpture by the lens of childhood, taking part in with wood blocks. He started extruding the two dimensions into 3 dimensions and employing individuals blocks to make new sculptural sorts. The will work in the exhibition characterize a artistic approach exactly where Bergeron’s previously performs influenced him to even further establish inventive tips in new techniques utilizing new components until finally the authentic notion gets to be a footnote to a a lot larger body of thoroughly realized will work. These processes are telling of Bergeron’s common inventive practice, as most of the perform in the present signifies the middle phase of but a further iteration of this sequence, these operates will serve as concluded maquettes for upcoming operates that will be scaled much much larger.

In his exact operate with repurposed elements stitched collectively in significant textile-primarily based parts, Ben Venom contrasts the often menacing and aggressive counterculture parts of skateboarding, punk/metal songs, and the occult with the comforts of domesticity. This collision of regular quilting techniques with features tied to the fringes of society re-envisions the tale of the content by way of a softer lens. The reclaimed fabrics employed in Venom’s work consist of a multitude of personalized histories and everyone’s unexplained stain, tear, or rip is provided. These salvaged items are sewn into a much larger narrative and develop into a component of a collective historical past in just the get the job done. The fragility of the components and their assaulting imagery are introduced jointly in the sort of a functional artwork. Venom’s artistic challenge is exemplified with the work “Flex Your Head” whose title and imagery are borrowed from a Minimal Threat song lyric. The quilt brings together the alternate, but positive, beliefs and the powerful approaches of expression of the punk band with the softness and performance of the donated material in a way that conveys a clash in between various cultures and traditions. This is a single of Ben Venom’s overarching tasks in his collective oeuvre.

Inspired by his own childhood, raised by a father who was a jeweler, metallic leafing performs a significant job in the art of Gianluca Franzese. The applied metals in Franzese’s substantial functions are blended in a in depth network of interconnected traces, rich colours, and recurring designs that express a precise harmony and harmony by geometric configurations that are not pre-planned but are the end result of an intuitive, curious, and playful innovative system. The exhibition marks the 1st time Gianluca Franzese exhibits in Europe in lots of several years. The operates in the exhibition can consequently be found as a reinterpretation of the continent’s prosperous traditions in the use of metal and the precise craftsmanship of the metalsmiths for the duration of the medieval ages. The intricate relationship of chainmail for armor, the elaborate jewels that adorned monarchies and the ouroboros, the mythological snake biting its have tail which was an essential symbol in the alchemy of the Center Ages, are all renewed in Franzese’s styles, which areas the operates in a bigger historical context.

With each other the performs of the exhibition create a conference stage involving diverse tactile houses that are all conveyed by summary geometric compositions. The metallic expression of Bergeron’s tricky and 3-dimensional bronze sculptures is also present in Franzese’s geometric paintings in the metal leafing, and the equilibrium and thoroughly composed shapes and patterns of these paintings are also seasoned in Venom’s quilt made from repurposed textile. This creates a dialogue concerning the performs of the exhibition that contributes to the growth of our inventive being familiar with.