›100‹ 10/02/2023—15/04/2023

• Peter Vink

Frankfurt 10/02/2023—15/04/2023

Peter Vink was born in Bilt (Netherlands) in 1974 and studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. He is known for his temporary and permanent installations in public and private spaces and regularly receives commissions from public institutions such as the Dutch government's Building Department.

Peter Vink has an extraordinary ability to understand space, to influence it and to transform it into something new and previously unseen. The place where he works becomes his temporary studio. His interventions highlight and draw attention to the elements of that particular space - literally and metaphorically - elements that the viewer's eye has not seen before and that his mind often takes for granted and blocks out.

The artist's work is site-specific, his visual manipulation of the place underlines its architectural peculiarities, enhancing its appearance through a play on scale, sometimes reduced and muted, sometimes enlarged and oversized in relation to the dimensions of the surroundings. Architectural, minimalist and innovative, Peter Vink and his light works understand the spirit of a place and bring it to life.

With the exhibition ›100‹, Peter Vink offers visitors an immersive light installation that highlights the vertical elements of the gallery's basement. The title "100" is a tribute to the hundred lines that make up his work and a nod to the colloquial meaning of the word "to be real; to stay true; to be straight".

This authenticity and straightforwardness can be seen in this light installation, which, as is characteristic of his works, was created and produced for this very space. The nine columns located in the basement form the basis for the work of art: the artist has optically multiplied these nine existing columns and lined their corners with aluminum profiles with LED strips.

Sixteen more were added, consisting only of the aluminum profile and lights, creating an illusion of twenty-five columns in total.

This hundred-line landscape is given a rhythm and computer-controlled by the artist, creating a symphony of light movements that celebrates not only the gallery itself but also the city of Frankfurt, symbolized in the collective imagination by its glowing skyscrapers.

What is particularly interesting is that on this occasion Peter Vink makes the main character of his installation an element of the space that is usually overlooked and filtered by our eyes and mind when we look at the entire floor. Usually they are disturbing elements, but these same columns now become the starting point for this play of lines and lights and are highlighted for their architectural qualities. The space is now dominated by them with a positive accent and loses its antagonistic qualities.

As a rule, each of his works is created for exactly one room and place, without which it would be incomplete. With his work ›Tetterode‹, Peter Vink breaks away from this particularity and turns this concept into its opposite. ›Tetterode‹ is the first of his works that he shows outside the context of its original room, without losing its site-specific quality. The artist uses the design of the marble hallway in the Tetterode residential building as inspiration for this light sculpture; the shape of the white floor elements is reflected in the three basic elements of the light body. These three elements form a "T" as a direct reference to the first letter of the word and at the same time allude to the past of the building, which used to serve as a type foundry. Each of these three light elements consists of twenty-two lines of light in aluminum profiles. They vary in their light intensity and thus give the work the spatial illusion of depth. This is also an allusion to the printing industry.

Both artworks are accompanied by 5 printed sketches - a first in the artist's career - which are available in an exclusive edition of only 3 pieces per motif.

Installation Views: Credits Daniel Beyer and Lachenmann Art