›FIGURES & FORMS‹ 21/04/2023—24/06/2023

• Nick Ervinck
• Jukka Rusanen

Frankfurt 21/04/2023—24/06/2023

The exhibition on the ground floor of the gallery rooms brings together two artistic positions that enter into an exciting dialogue between materiality and representation. The long-standing gallery artist Jukka Rusanen (Finland) has been represented worldwide by the Lachenmann Art gallery since this year and can look back on an extensive exhibition history in German-speaking and Scandinavian countries. As part of the ›Figures & Forms‹ exhibition, Lachenmann Art is also launching a collaboration with the Belgian artist Nick Ervinck, who is known in the art world far beyond Belgium's borders and is considered one of the most important contemporary sculptors of his generation.

Jukka Rusanen's canvas works come to life through pastel tones and an unmistakable style, through which the artist's hand is inscribed in the work almost effortlessly. Partially pastose elements are juxtaposed with powdery colors and refer back to the Rococo period, from which the artist draws his inspiration. The moment of pure materiality on the canvas is always juxtaposed with the moments of haptic form and materializes into figurativeness when viewed. An almost inexplicable tension between calm, monotonous surfaces and wildly expressive traces of color determines the artist's works and increases in a crescendo of filigree lightness and thunderous brutality. The works presented here were created within the last few years and provide a deep insight into the oeuvre of the Finnish artist, in which, alongside physicality and floral elements, the theme of textile art and traditional weaving is repeatedly inscribed.

Nick Ervinck approaches the themes of the human body and that of nature in a completely new way, based on the use of the latest technologies. In doing so, he always builds a bridge to tradition and finds the starting point for his innovative works in classical art history. Hans Arp, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth are greats of art to whom he repeatedly refers. The "negative space" as a design element represents one of the most important access points for the Belgian artist. He plays with the opposites of a physical and a virtual world, which he uses to create and visualize 3D-printed sculptures. In his creative process, he repeatedly asks himself how the latest computer technology can be used to create new, organic forms. Nick Ervinck transfers the artistic idea of ​​a "negative space", a void in the work of art, into the twenty-first century and repeatedly takes his inspiration from the anatomy of the human body.

The exhibition ›Figures & Forms‹ thus combines two different artistic concepts that differ both in their visual appearance and in their conceptual methodology. It is precisely this dualism that enables new perspectives and an exciting interplay of plural artistic techniques, materiality and visuality, and approaches the representation of figure, form, color and haptics in different ways.

Installation Views: Credits Daniel Beyer