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

For some time, Jud Bergeron and Gallery Poulsen have been studying how we can set alongside one another an exhibition that adds a new dimension to the gallery. Gallery Poulsen is specifically oriented toward the figurative aspects of the artwork environment but when they invited Jud Bergeron onboard we also invited the abstract minimalism in its three-dimensional type which acts as a website link between figurative art and abstract artwork whilst also currently being a way for them to incorporate the actual physical house in our exhibitions. A Birdcage, Till Even further Observe is the most recent addition in their series of invitational displays the place a person of Gallery Poulsen’s frequent artists invites, for us, new artists into the gallery’s house which in transform contributes to the enlargement of our artistic knowledge.

In Bergeron’s sculptures there is a specific focus on the tactile homes of abstract geometric designs, a aim that is also existing in Ben Venom’s and Gianluca Franzese’s respective perform with shapes and mix of components. Bergeron, Venom, and Franzese all dwell and perform in San Francisco, California.

Jud Bergeron’s new series of sculptures stems from a collection of wall reliefs that were influenced by a single of his silkscreen prints built in 2020. Bergeron began to envision the wall reliefs as blocks and started pondering about the origins of sculpture through the lens of childhood, playing with wooden blocks. He began extruding the two dimensions into a few dimensions and making use of those people blocks to make new sculptural sorts. The operates in the exhibition depict a resourceful process where by Bergeron’s previously is effective encouraged him to more produce creative thoughts in new strategies making use of new elements until eventually the initial notion gets a footnote to a considerably larger sized physique of entirely realized works. These procedures are telling of Bergeron’s typical inventive practice, as most of the work in the demonstrate represents the center stage of nonetheless one more iteration of this series, these will work will serve as finished maquettes for potential functions that will be scaled much larger.

In his exact perform with repurposed materials stitched alongside one another in huge textile-based parts, Ben Venom contrasts the often menacing and aggressive counterculture parts of skateboarding, punk/metal tunes, and the occult with the comforts of domesticity. This collision of regular quilting procedures with things tied to the fringes of society re-envisions the tale of the material via a softer lens. The reclaimed fabrics utilised in Venom’s work consist of a multitude of own histories and everyone’s unexplained stain, tear, or rip is incorporated. These salvaged pieces are sewn into a larger sized narrative and develop into a component of a collective background within just the perform. The fragility of the resources and their assaulting imagery are introduced alongside one another in the variety of a practical artwork. Venom’s inventive task is exemplified with the function “Flex Your Head” whose title and imagery are borrowed from a Small Menace music lyric. The quilt combines the alternative, but optimistic, beliefs and the highly effective ways of expression of the punk band with the softness and performance of the donated fabric in a way that conveys a clash in between diverse cultures and traditions. This is 1 of Ben Venom’s overarching jobs in his collective oeuvre.

Encouraged by his own childhood, raised by a father who was a jeweler, steel leafing performs a sizeable part in the art of Gianluca Franzese. The used metals in Franzese’s substantial operates are merged in a specific network of interconnected traces, prosperous shades, and repeated styles that express a specific equilibrium and harmony via geometric configurations that are not pre-planned but are the outcome of an intuitive, curious, and playful resourceful procedure. The exhibition marks the initially time Gianluca Franzese displays in Europe in a lot of years. The operates in the exhibition can therefore be viewed as a reinterpretation of the continent’s prosperous traditions in the use of metallic and the specific craftsmanship of the metalsmiths throughout the medieval ages. The intricate link of chainmail for armor, the elaborate jewels that adorned monarchies and the ouroboros, the mythological snake biting its personal tail which was an vital image in the alchemy of the Center Ages, are all renewed in Franzese’s designs, which spots the will work in a more substantial historic context.

Collectively the operates of the exhibition make a conference position concerning various tactile houses that are all conveyed through summary geometric compositions. The metallic expression of Bergeron’s hard and a few-dimensional bronze sculptures is also current in Franzese’s geometric paintings in the steel leafing, and the stability and cautiously composed styles and designs of these paintings are also experienced in Venom’s quilt built from repurposed textile. This results in a dialogue involving the operates of the exhibition that contributes to the expansion of our inventive comprehension.