Galerie Gilla Loercher is pleased to announce Accrochage, featuring a curated selection of works by gallery-represented artists and guest artists. The presentation includes paintings and objects by John Cornu, Ivan Liovik Ebel, Ivana Kličković, Quentin Lefranc, Sandrine Mahéo, Gonzalo Reyes Araos, Christian Pilz and Capucine Vandebrouck.
The opening will be on 31 January 19:00.
John Cornu
This powerful and enigmatic work preserves all of its mystery. What can one define it as? Butcher’s chopping blocks? Landscapes? Gravestones? Autobiographies of objects? Robust and soft, dense and floating, these peculiarly beautiful forms strike us with their presence. These simple, rough objects contain the outline of a life of labour. Some testify to the violence of endlessly repeated gestures, others bear scars that have come with time, while others carry the mark of desperate, vain repairs. (…) It is this ambivalence than makes them interesting. They are at once frail and resistant, strong and fragile. These blind bodies on which the signs of absent life can be read call out to be thought. From the invisible, they have become visible. John Cornu has saved them from oblivion. The series is a sort of memorial, paying homage to these unloved objects, implicitly questioning our own powers of resistance to our world, to work and time. (Text: excerpt from the John Cornu portfolio)
John Cornu (born in 1976, lives and works in Paris and Rennes) works with an aesthetic inherited from Minimalism and Modernism (monochromy, seriality, modularity, the primacy of the materials), while maintaining a strong relation to (historical, architectural, societal) context and a form of contemporary Romanticism (Dionysianism, erosion, blindness, references to different sonic universes, and entropy). With an interest for modern ruins, logics of power, and anthropological gaps, the artist imbues his productions with an atmosphere at once poetic, cathartic and without compromise. Whether sculptural, performative, or installation-based, they address paradoxical forces, setting up a multiplicity of meanings and readings.
John Cornu’s work has been shown in numerous solo and group shows at: Institut Giacometti (Paris, FR), Palais de Tokyo and Maison rouge (Paris, FR), Mains d’œuvres (Saint-Ouen, FR), CNEAI (Chatou, Paris, FR), Galerie Edouard-Manet (Gennevilliers, FR), 40mcube/Hub Hug (Rennes, FR), Frac Bretagne (Rennes, FR), Parvis Centre d’art contemporain (Ibos, FR), Bel ordinaire (Pau, FR), CACN-Centre d’art contemporain (Nîmes, FR), Les Trinitaires (Metz, FR), Les Ateliers des Arques (Arques, FR), Fonds Carta (Marseille, FR), BF15 (Lyon, FR), EAC–Espace de l’Art Concret (Mouans-Sartoux, FR), BBB centre d’art et Abattoirs–Frac Midi-Pyrénées and CIAM-La Fabrique (Toulouse, FR), La Galerie Duchamp – Centre d’art contemporain (Yvetot, FR), Prieuré de Pont-Loup (Moret-sur-Loing, FR), Musée des Beaux-arts in Rennes and in Calais (FR), Lyon Biennale (FR), Saint-Paul de Vence Biennale (FR); Attic (Brussels, BE), Académie royale des Beaux-Arts (Brussels, BE), DBKAproject (Brussels, BE), Les Brasseurs (Liège, BE), Sainsbury Center for Visual Arts (Norwich, UK), CIRCA (Montréal, CA), MACRO–Museo di Arte contemporanea di Roma (Rome, IT), Chambre Blanche (Québec, CA), ZQM (Berlin, Germany), the Nuit Blanche in Montreal (CA), Nanjo Art Museum (Okinawa, JP), Maison Arawaka (Takayama, JP), Galerie Gilla Loercher (Berlin, D).
Ivan Liovik Ebel
The phrase that maybe best describes Ivan Liovik Ebel´s work in a nutshell is “the spaces in between”. For him personally, the term “intermediate spaces” refers to a sort of investigation of the relativity of perception, of forms of non-distinguishability as well as the relationship between time and space.
Ebel works with many different media like painting, print, installation, sculpture or performance. In each case, he is interested in a certain moment of indeterminacy and uncertainty, in which one no longer knows exactly what one is actually looking at.
Ivan Liovik Ebel (born in 1983) received his Masters in Contemporary Arts Practice from the Bern University of the Arts. His work has been exhibited in numerous institutions and galleries: Kunsthaus Langenthal (CH), Kunsthalle Bern (CH), Kunstmuseum Bern (CH), Nanjo Art Museum, Okinawa (Jpn), Annka Kultys Gallery, London (GB), Galerie Valérie Delaunay Paris (F), Espace Art & Essai, Rennes (F), Galerie Gilla Loercher, Berlin (D).
Ivana Klickovic
„The focus of Ivana Kličković’s practice rests on the process of selection and “sampling” of culturally and chronologically distant visual patterns – such as Japanese woodblock prints, drawings of old theatrical scenery or digital images pulled from the Internet – which she recreates on canvas as simultaneously overlapping layers of reduced image fragments that form large-scale compositions, spatially flat and open to interpretation, both abstract and/or quasi-representational. (…) Confirming atemporality as one of the main features of her painterly gesture, Kličković indirectly but accurately comments on the multidirectional, constant and often chaotic circulation of images in our everyday lives, in which everything has already been seen and exists intertwined, independently from isolated cultural patterns and social phenomena. By reacting to and participating in a global economy of images, in which dissemination of visual information is organised in such a way, Kličković takes over and examines the logic of overlapping, mixing, flexibility, conflict, and simultaneity of visual motifs and styles within her own painting structure.”
“These paintings are not created with pretence to either semantic coherence or didactic intent. If a reference to history or genre of painting is to be used in relation to them, then the landscape, in its broadest sense, could serve as the methodological framework – a landscape that, in Kličković’s paintings, appears as a section of an infinite horizon from which the sequence of the visible is isolated by the eye. In this case, however, we are looking at imaginary landscapes that open up as vast spaces built on a network of fragments overlapping in a way that involves multiple views and that, in this sense, cannot be limited to what is comprehended exclusively by any single eye.” (Excerpt from the text Notes on the painting practice of Ivana Kličković by Ana Ereš)
Ivana Kličković was born and raised in Yugoslavia. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, where she received MA in Painting. Between 2000 and 2010 she worked as research associate, assistant lecturer and a docent at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade. Since 2010 she has been based in Berlin, where she developed a multidisciplinary practice based around an idiosyncratic exploration of correspondences between painting, drawing and photography, and their relation to film and theatre design.
Kličković’s most recent solo exhibitions in Berlin were presented in 2023 and 2020 at Galerie Gilla Loercher. Previous solo exhibitions include ‘here… the moon’ at the Art Gallery, Cultural Center of Belgrade; the Faculty of Architecture; Belgrade Youth Centre; and Centre for Cultural Decontamination, all in Belgrade; and Gallery of Contemporary Art in Pančevo, Serbia. Her work was included in a number of significant group exhibitions in Serbia, including at the Yugoslav Biennial of Young Artists in 1998 and 2004; the 39th and the 42nd October Salon, in 1998 and 2001 respectively; the SKC Student Cultural Centre in Belgrade in 2007 and Abstract Landscape 2.0, at the Cultural Centre of Belgrade in 2022; as well as part of Arcadia Unbound at Funkhaus, Berlin in 2015.
Quentin Lefranc
Conceived as a place of study, architecture serves as a framework, territory and playing field for Quentin Lefranc’s pieces. He always creates a dialog between the place and what he shows there. His pieces, which are located at the interface of different practices, function like open brackets in space. By combining or juxtaposing them, he questions what they consist of. He experiments with permeability, hierarchies and its history. Even if a sculptural dimension dominates, his proposals favor a field of action rather than a practice that invites us to reflect on our existence and place-making.
The French artist Quentin Lefranc (born 1987) lives and works in Paris (F). Since studying art at the Art School in Rueil-Malmaison and at the School of Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Quentin Lefranc has been creating works of art that are difficult to categorize. They are neither painting nor sculpture, nor are they architectural elements. His works contain a bit of everything. He aims to question space in many different ways. Sometimes he even questions the existence of the work / artwork itself.
Quentin Lefranc’s works have been shown in numerous art institutions and galleries: Palais de Tokyo, Paris (F); Centre d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes (F), Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles (B), Fondation Suisse, Paris (F), Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Pantin (F); Galerie Jérôme Pauchant, Paris (F); Galerie Gilla Loercher, Berlin (D), Galerie Municipale Julio Gonzales, Arceuil (F); Château de la Reuil-Malmaison, Reuil-Malmaison (F); CNAP Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris (F), galerie art & essai, Rennes (F), QG Gallery, Brussels (B), Librairie Ivan Lambert, Paris (F), Collection Ivan Lambert, Avignon (F) a.o.
Quentin Lefranc will have his second solo show in August 2025 at Galerie Gilla Loercher.
Sandrine Mahéo
Discovering the work of French artist Sandrine Mahéo means “immersing oneself in a wealth of colors that constantly raises questions and subtly reveals the question of form in painting on several aesthetic levels without necessarily questioning the canvas as such, without necessarily negating the gesture and without making it the be-all and end-all of painting. Looking for historical “resonances, the closest connection is to be seen in the American Color Field movement, whose spiritualist, contemplative and purely formalist inspiration reached its peak in the 1960s. And so Mahéo immerses us in large pieces detached from a fresco, as it were, here a fragment of Tiepolo’s sky, there a piece of gray wall, which on closer inspection turn out to be a network of micro-spots or finely speckled colors.” (Excerpt of a text by: Jean-Francois Desserre)
Sandrine Mahéo (born 1974) holds a National Diploma of Fine Arts from the College of Fine Arts, Montpellier (France). Her work has been shown in art institutions and galleries such as: Galerie Bernard Jordan, Paris; Carré Saint-Anne, Montpellier; Art Center Vallon du Villaret, Bagnol-les-Bains, Galerie Gilla Loercher, Berlin a.o.
Christian Pilz
In her text about the work of the draftsman Christian Pilz, Manuela O’Connell writes: “The abundance of details challenges the viewer to take a closer look. A technical ability is evident in his work, which does not suggest that the artist works with graphite in just one degree of hardness. With his precision, he opens up millennia-old culture and history to the viewer as a varied game of order and chaos that seems to continue ad infinitum in the drawing.”
The German artist Christian Pilz (born 1978 in Ascot, UK) studied at the UdK Universität der Kuenste, Berlin and was a master student of Leiko Ikemura. He has received numerous grants and prizes.
His drawings have been shown in many museums, institutions and galleries, such as: Kunstmuseum Moritzburg, Halle/ Saale; Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven; Villa Massimo, Rome; Villa Rosenthal, Jena; Cranach Foundation, Wittenberg; Kunstmuseum Bonn; Cultural Foundation Sparkasse Unna; Kunsthalle Recklinghausen; Marta Herford, Herford; Städtische Galerie, Wolfsburg; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; Kunstverein Ahlen; Galerie Gilla Loercher, Berlin.
Gonzalo Reyes Araos
Through his multidisciplinary work, Gonzalo Reyes Araos interrogates the forms of communication that have redefined and reconditioned contemporary human relationships and the perception of our natural environment through the digital devices that accompany our daily lives.
The RGB color model is an additive color model in which red, green and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue. The main purpose of the RGB color model is for the sensing, representation and display of images in electronic systems, such as televisions and computers, though it has also been used in conventional photography. Before the electronic age, the RGB color model already had a solid theory behind it, based in human perception of colors. (Wikipedia)
RGB + #FFFFFF and RGB + #000000 are a series of RGB paintings in which there is a filter of white and black colors. The numbers #FFFFFF indicate the hexadecimal code of a color in the programming language, in which #FFFFFF indicate the white color and #000000 the black color. The process giving rise to these paintings seeks to analogize algorithms composing images in LCD screens, thus creating a parallel between a physical and a digital language. The works are composed of red, green and blue colors (the three colors constituting the pixels that structure screens), thereby approaching the Additive color theory (light) by “physical” pigments. The layout is organized in a raster*, in which the pixels will compose the structure of the works. The composition is created by technical accidents or “glitches” occurring during the process of “transmission of information”. Some “bits” of papers fall, unglued from the support resulting in a random lack of data, which is supplanted by the background, creating new colors and flecks of information on a monochromatic (or three-chromatic) surface. (Gonzalo Reyes Araos)
(*) Raster is a rectangular pattern of parallel scanning lines followed by the electron beam on a television screen or computer monitor.
Chilean artist Gonzalo Reyes Araos (born 1980) studied at the School of Fine Arts of Valparaíso, CL.
His works have been shown in numerous art institutions and galleries: Maison de l´Amerique latine, Brussels, BE; Mass Art Museum, Jinan, CN; Geumcheon Art Space Seoul, KR; Balmaceda 1215 Cultural Centre, Valparaiso, CL; House of Culture at Limache, CL; Pantocrator Gallery, Shanghai, CN / Barcelona, ES / Amsterdam, NL; Fisher Gallery at Oberlin College, Ohio, US; Galerie Gilla Loercher, Berlin, D; Kindl Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin (D), Maison de l’Amérique latine, Brussels, B; among others).
Capucine Vandebrouck
The image carrier material used for the artwork “Hi Robert!” reacts strongly to light and changes iridescent in all rainbow colors when the viewer moves and thereby transforms the surrounded space.
French curator Marie Cozette on the classification of Capucine Vandebrouck’s work: „…somewhere between the Dust Breeding of Duchamps and the „scribbles“ of Sol le Witt, between the proponents of arte povera and the Asphalt Rundown of Smithson, between the bitter elegance of Eva Hesse and the visual alchemies of Ann Veronica Janssens or Edith Dekyndt.”
Capucine Vandebrouck (born 1985) is a photographer and a sculptor. She graduated from the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Strasbourg, the École Nationale Supérieure d’Art of Bourges and the Marc Bloch faculty.
Capucine Vandebrouck lives and works in Strasbourg (France).
She has taken part in numerous artist residencies and received several awards and research grants.
Capucine Vandebrouck was awarded the Ouest-Ost residency (partnership with the Institute Francais of Berlin, FEFA, and the Goethe Institute, Berlin (D) in 2017; the studio residence of Lindre-Basse (F) in 2014; the residency of the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg in partnership with the CEAAC and the French Institute, Stuttgart (D) in 2014 and the RAVI, artist residence Vivegnis international, Liège (B) in 2013 a.o. The most recent stipends (2022) were the individual creation grant from the DRAC Alsace (F) and the creation grant from the Région Grand Est (F), which enabled her to obtain a research grant to undertake a 3-month trip to the Yukon Territory (Can). Her work has been shown in art museums, institutions and galleries such as Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (CH); Musée d´Art Moderne et d´Art Contemporain MAMAC, Nice (F); CEAAC, Strasbourg (F); Musée La Grande Place, Saint-Louis-les-Bitches (F); Goethe Institute, Nancy (F); Galerie der Stadt Sindelfingen (D); La Kunsthalle Mulhouse (F); Nanjo Art Museum, Okinawa (Jpn), Galerie Gilla Loercher, Berlin (D).
Öffnungszeiten / Opening hours: Wed-Fri 12:00-18:00, Sat 12:00-16:00
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