Making an exhibition with three artists is quite a venture, especially if all three show personality in their works.
Often the works of two artists seem to communicate while the third gets isolated in one way or another.
Heden made a show with works by Yani Chuang, Anatole de Benedictis and Joncquil in which this doesn’t happen.
The works are concentrated in the two main exhibition rooms, but they are also presented in the rest of the gallery, more or less embedded in Heden’s collection.
Indeed all three artists need space.
They were brought together as they make use of found objects, found footage if you wish.
Chuang, who graduated last year from the Royal Academy in The Hague (KABK), takes chairs in different types and styles as her starting point.
She transforms them into sculptural characters and even gives them individual names.
Her works function as a kind of beacons in the show.
It will be interesting to see how her work will develop.
De Benedictis already graduated some years ago and his work has very much grown since.
In his drawings rigorous precision and a clear graphic pencil line are his hallmarks.
Their ‘coolness’, completed by objects that reflect the subjects of the drawings, seems to mask a world of falling and rising, including the pains, the joys and the discrepancies.
Joncquil’s world has expanded gradually octopus-like with the different interests and different disciplines he incorporates in his practice, of which painting, film and on-the-spot happenings are not presented in this show.
But, well, art is always ‘happening’ the moment you see it anyway, especially in Joncquil’s case.
Heden’s choice to make this rich and expanding show with these three artists is a very happy one indeed.
© Villa Next Door 2019
Contents of all photographs courtesy to the artists and to Heden, Den Haag
Bertus Pieters
Villa Next Door 2 