Vincent Ganivet and Harmen de Hoop at ARCOmadrid 2011

Professional preview: Wednesday, February 16th from 12 am to 9 pm
Professional visit + vernissage: Thursday, February 17th from 12 am to 9 pm
Open for general public: Friday 18th, Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th from 12 am to 8 pm

In the section Opening, curated by Maribel López, at ARCOmadrid, West is presenting works by of one of the most spectacular young French artists at this moment, Vincent Ganivet, and of the international working Dutch ‘street artist’ Harmen de Hoop.

Vincent Ganivet’s (1976, France) impressive installations of bricks are very delicate, despite the strong material they are made of. They emit an elegance which results from a deep belief in structure and the power of authentic material. As much as Ganivet’s Caténaires, Arches and Roués suggest solidity and permanency, they are not eternal but rather a metaphor of fate. Ganivet loves to transform the meaning of everyday objects and situations and to enjoin great tension on the viewer. By starting a dialogue between nature and culture, past and present, art and the ordinary in his work, Ganivet transposes Arte Povera to the 21st century. West presents a new installation by Ganivet that was especially constructed for ARCOmadrid. The work of Vincent Ganivet is now on exhibition at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice and was recently shown at Musée d'Art moderne and Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Artmandat, Barjols; 40m3, Rennes; Le Confort moderne, Poitiers; LaBox, Bourges; Entre-deux, Nantes; La Station, Nice; Fonderie Darling, Québec; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris and West, Den Haag, among other places.

Harmen de Hoop (1959, Netherlands) examines conventions in society, mainly outside the exhibition space. Specific spots in public space are anonymously manipulated. De Hoop moves objects, people and animals whereby the interpretation of the (conditioned) surroundings becomes different. Earlier De Hoop painted outlines of a basketball field on a parking lot, placed a coat rack on a tram stop and restored a used pedestrian crossing. Occasional trespassers could doubt reality while confronted by these absurd situations. Is it not strange that a child plays football on a small traffic island with grass? Or what is the usefulness of a fire extinguisher attached to an information board? Are balloons tied up on a ‘ready-made’ statue art?
These interventions in the urban surroundings are not always easily recognizable as art. However, in the context of the exhibition space, the images of these interventions and manipulations become irrevocable recognizable as art. Art which assumes an idea and refers to the space. Where De Hoop, very often casually, criticizes town planners, architects and others.
The work of Harmen de Hoop was shown at Tent, Rotterdam; Museum Valkhof, Nijmegen; Bureau, Manchester; Den Haag Sculptuur; Kulturpalast Wedding, Berlin; Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal; Vaclav Spala Gallery, Prague; Stroom and West Den Haag among other places.

EXTRA BOOK LAUNCH: West is proud to present the first, brand new, unconventional, oeuvre catalogue of Harmen de Hoop. The artist book (24 x 17 x 7 cm!) is 2.5 kilo and includes 58 projects from the last 20 years. The catalogue is now for sale for only 35 Euro.

We are pleased to welcome you to booth 10F11 in the section Opening at ARCOmadrid 2011.
For press photos and more information you can contact us via info@galeriewest.nl or +31(0)70.3925359.