Waggle Dance, Cornelia Baltes’ first solo presentation at rodolphe janssen in Brussels, sees the space teeming with life, activating the gallery with large vividly pigmented paintings built from sprayed gradients, bold gestures and fine brushwork set within a space-wide wall painting. [READ MORE]

This year’s main exhibition at Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Girl Meets Girl, can be seen as a conversation between the unique voices of 25 significant artists, all gathered under the same roof. (...)

An exhibition made up exclusively of female artists will, of course, also address issues concerning the position of women in the art world, as well as the historical imbalance in the representation of female artists. (...) The unique dialogue set up by these artists gives the exhibition its fundamental premise: a conversation about ideas, lived realities, and emotions that have formed their world, and therefore also ours. Girl Meets Girl invites us to consider these artists as important voices – in our time, and on a much wider timescale – and also invites us to take part in their conversation about the world around us.

Participating artists:
Cornelia Baltes, Juliette Mahieux Bartoli, Katherine Bernhardt, Katherine Bradford, Jenny Brosinski, Emma Cousin, Ina Gerken, Rosie Gibbens, Vivian Greven, Wanda Koop, Liane Lang, Corinne von Lebusa, Lee Won-Kyoung, Rosa Loy, Camilla Løw, Annie Morris, Helena Parada Kim, Martine Poppe, Johanna Reich, Aurora Reinhard, Saelia Aparicio Torinos, Urara Tsuchiya, Caroline Walker, Rose Wylie, Yu Jinyoung

Text by George Vasey, Curator and Writer

DIAGONAL LOOKING: ON THE WORK OF CORNELIA BALTES

Cornelia Baltes trades in the diagonal look. This sideways glance betrays an omnivorous curiosity, absorbing the world at slant. The curve of a lapel, knobby knees, the profile of a dusty vase, a new trainer’s sole, flexed muscle: Baltes’ eye is restlessly precise. It scans the environment, translating the incidental into something monumental. Baltes produces images like we consume them, her references are panoramic. Attending to the everyday; she sees and undoes the world by harnessing the peripheral look. [READ MORE]

Silkeborg

The second site-specific partner mural, "Slips and Trips", which adorns the staircase, was created especially for SOSU in Silkeborg. The abstract motif of the mural is inspired by the dynamic and essential function of the school's staircase as a place of meet and greet. "Slips and Trips" mimics the carved crooked, colourful steps and body shapes, surrounding the staircase with a humorous parallel universe of imaginary stairs. Baltes' use of deep black paint as fragmented components adds a contrast that gives the work a grace while making it seem abrupt. The work offers a playful intervention in the space and invites the viewer to bring it to life.

"A lot has been said about painting: Who took it to a new level. Who revolutionized painting, who killed it, and who supposedly reanimated it. There have been “painter princes”, geniuses, lunatics, addicts, the mania-driven, obsessives. The lack of ambiguity that the medium demands makes it easy for myths to twine around the originators, and the fascination with painters and their work is unbroken. But there are other ways to approach painting that are often neglected in the traditional discourse: approaches characterized by clarity and unambiguousness that develop their humor precisely from that. ... " [READ MORE]

Jetzt! Junge Malerei in Deutschland is now open at its fourth location, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg.

A beautiful catalogue has been published by Hirmer Verlag.

"500 works - 53 artists - 4 locations

With the exhibition project Jetzt! Kunstmuseum Bonn, Museum Wiesbaden, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz - Museum Gunzenhauser and Deichtorhallen Hamburg attempt to determine the current state of the medium in Germany. The aim is to give a valid cross-section of the young painting that was created in Germany, taking into account all manifestations of the medium without conceptual or ideological restrictions."

Art Magazine featured Cornelia's work on the cover and inside the September edition in the context of the Jetzt! Junge Malerei in Deutschland survey show.