Anneke Eussen

extra

The internationally acclaimed Dutch artist Anneke Eussen can be seen for the first time in Germany with an institutional solo show.

The source material for her mixed media objects, which are as imposing as they are filigree, are found objects as well as industrially manufactured materials, especially glass. In her elaborate formal language, Anneke Eussen arranges individual elements into minimalist-looking compositions in which the everyday reference remains visible. Often these overlap on several levels or partial elements protrude far from the wall into the room.

In a series of her “glass works”, which has strongly influenced her work in recent years, the artist uses, among other things, used car windows from vehicles that are over 60 years old. She is now completing this cycle with new works from this series, created for her solo show in Schwerin.

The traces of use, weathering and other external influences inscribed in the glass fascinate Anneke Eussen as unique signatures of each individual surface, which she takes up as impulses for artistic interaction.

Arrangements emerge that start from the given peculiarities of the material, from its changes due to time and process: Phenomena of wear and tear, dirt, filigree scratch marks and the color nuances of car windows tinted by time in muted shades of green, brown and gray. Occasionally, there are also additions of earlier courses of action from the everyday world, such as remnants of stickers or other markings of use.

It is these details, these partial deviations and destructive modifications, in which – as disturbances in the hermetic surface – a special sensual quality is revealed. They also act as an immediate reference to the metastable fragility of glass, and in this way touch on the universal human experience of impermanence and fragility. Anneke Eussen draws attention to the beauty of the fleeting moment and the qualities of imperfection.

For Anneke Eussen, the peculiarities of the material and the space, the site-specific architecture, and the marks left on the surfaces by time become the formal criterion that motivates her compositions. From industrially manufactured, partly found elements, an “extra” emerges in careful addition and arrangement – an artificial extension of the regular.

 

 

The exhibition is supported by
Niederländische Botschaft Berlin, das Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Kultur, Bundes- und Europaangelegenheiten und die Landeshauptstadt Schwerin