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Rita Ackermann & Andro Wekua: Chapter 4
Fergus McCaffrey, Tokyo
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Artists
Rita Ackermann, Andro Wekua
A unique exhibition bringing together two artists who are long-time allies, some-time collaborators, and singular personalities for a dual-person show that traces inspiration and creative exchange through some twenty years.Grounded in a common experience of bankrupt Soviet idealism, systemic repression, eventual exile, and the immigrant experience, Rita Ackermann and Andro Wekua both left the Eastern
Block in the 1990s to pursue careers abroad. While Ackermann’s art retains few references to her early life in Hungary and is absorbed in her experience of America from the late 1980s to the present day, Wekua’s art enigmatically clings to an unclear recent-past.
Wekua begins with collages of animals, palm trees, inwardly consumed adolescents, and abandoned domestic spaces that become gradually obliterated and transformed under layers of bright pinks, purples, acid yellows, turquoises, and magentas that evoke the color palette of Rothko.
Ackermann shares the same layering, coding, and disclosure of source imagery, which often appears distracting and at odds with itself, perhaps reflecting a layer of self-defense against prying eyes and pervasive surveillance. Her Do’s and Don’ts paintings (2008-09) are built from montages cut and pasted from magazines and photocopied books, which she amended with graphite and oil crayon, adding outlines, silhouettes, and textures; blurring the distinction between the source imagery and her own. Over the last 15 years her female protagonists have been grouped as Nurses, Sisters, or Mamas, reflecting, complying, rebelling, or simply ignoring the imposed stereotypes and fictive constructs of femininity. Though her subjects bear a strong resemblance to Ackermann herself—reimagined as a doe-eyed manga character—‘she’ remains enigmatically serene and mute, while Ackermann’s free facility in hand painting, bravura oil stick, and sinuous chalk drawing intuitively respond in distinct gestures to the underlying cacophony of compressed layers both real and otherwise.
Block in the 1990s to pursue careers abroad. While Ackermann’s art retains few references to her early life in Hungary and is absorbed in her experience of America from the late 1980s to the present day, Wekua’s art enigmatically clings to an unclear recent-past.
Wekua begins with collages of animals, palm trees, inwardly consumed adolescents, and abandoned domestic spaces that become gradually obliterated and transformed under layers of bright pinks, purples, acid yellows, turquoises, and magentas that evoke the color palette of Rothko.
Ackermann shares the same layering, coding, and disclosure of source imagery, which often appears distracting and at odds with itself, perhaps reflecting a layer of self-defense against prying eyes and pervasive surveillance. Her Do’s and Don’ts paintings (2008-09) are built from montages cut and pasted from magazines and photocopied books, which she amended with graphite and oil crayon, adding outlines, silhouettes, and textures; blurring the distinction between the source imagery and her own. Over the last 15 years her female protagonists have been grouped as Nurses, Sisters, or Mamas, reflecting, complying, rebelling, or simply ignoring the imposed stereotypes and fictive constructs of femininity. Though her subjects bear a strong resemblance to Ackermann herself—reimagined as a doe-eyed manga character—‘she’ remains enigmatically serene and mute, while Ackermann’s free facility in hand painting, bravura oil stick, and sinuous chalk drawing intuitively respond in distinct gestures to the underlying cacophony of compressed layers both real and otherwise.
Schedule | May 1 (Sat) 2021-Jul 31 (Sat) 2021 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | https://fergusmccaffrey.com/exhibition/rita-ackermann-andro-wekua-chapter-4/ | ||||
| Venue | Fergus McCaffrey, Tokyo http://fergusmccaffrey.com/exhibitions/ | ||||
| Location | 3-5-9 Kita-aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0061 | ||||
| Access | 3 minute walk from exit A3 at Omotesando Station on the Ginza, Hanzomon and Chiyoda lines. 11 minute walk from exit 5 at Meiji-jingumae Station on the Chiyoda and Fukutoshin lines. | ||||
| Phone | 03-6447-2660 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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