Spotlight: A Weekly Artwork Selection
Ann Veronica Janssens: Green, Yellow and Pink, 2017
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| Photos © Andrea Rossetti | |
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Ann Veronica Janssens Green, Yellow and Pink, 2017 Artificial mist, green, yellow, and pink filters Dimensions variable
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| Photo © Andrea Rossetti | |
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“(…) sometimes you have to erase reality, erase what’s visible in order to see something else, to make the invisible visible.” – Ann Veronica Janssens
This site-specific work was created on occasion of the artist’s 2017 solo exhibition at Esther Schipper, Ich rede zu Dir wie Kinder reden in der Nacht. Once visitors pass the threshold of the exhibition space, they find themselves immersed in an immaterial colored abstraction where any spatial or temporal landmark has disappeared.
Green, Yellow and Pink was most recently part of the artist's Connect, BTS project at DDP Design Exhibition Hall, Seoul in 2020.
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Janssens came to prominence in the late 1990s. Horror Vacui, her groundbreaking contribution to the 48th Venice Biennale (1999) where she represented Belgium with her long-time collaborator Michel François, filled the space with thick mist that served to disorient the viewers. With this spectacular immersive environment, Janssens pursued an artistic experiment started in 1997 with MUHKA Antwerp, her iconic white fog room conceived on occasion of her exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in Antwerp. Once they had passed the threshold, visitors found themselves in a dense white mist bathed in natural light, moving into an immaterial colored abstraction where any spatial or temporal landmark had disappeared.
In 2001, Janssens installed Blue, Red, and Yellow—a “mobile sculpture” shaped like a container—on the plaza of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Mies Van der Rohe’s iconic modernist building. Along with her 2000 contribution MA-I, on the occasion of the Dance Festival in Tours, France, Blue, Red, and Yellow was one of the first colored fog rooms created by the artist. It was later reiterated in 2009, 2010, and on occasion of Janssens’ major exhibition at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, 2016.
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| Exhibition view: Ann Veronica Janssens, Green, Yellow and Pink, DDP Design Exhibition Hall, Seoul, 2020 Photo © Jang Jun-Ho | |
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Green, Yellow and Pink is featured in our Art Basel OVR: Pioneers Viewing Room
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Interview: To Walk Into a Painting |
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| Click the image to play the full video from Louisiana Channel. | |
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Imagine walking into a painting, immersing yourself in one specific color and almost feeling that color inside you. This is the idea behind an installation by one of Belgium’s most prominent artists, Ann Veronica Janssens. In this video the artist shows Associate Professor in Physics, Troels Petersen, around in the work, which “opens to a kind of infinity.”
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Ann Veronica Janssens’ work foregrounds the body’s perception of the world and itself in it. She often uses light, natural optical phenomena or glass as a medium. Beautifully made, her works exude the impression of great simplicity yet create vivid experiences of the act of seeing, evoking a heightened awareness of the changeability and fleetingness of individual perception.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Hot Pink Turquoise, South London Gallery, London (2020-21) and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk (2020); Contrepoint 2, Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris (2019); Ann Veronica Janssens, De Pont Museum, Tilburg (2018-19); Ann Veronica Janssens, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2018-19); Fog Star, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore (2018); mars, IAC, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes (2017); Ann Veronica Janssens, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2016); Ann Veronica Janssens: yellowbluepink, Wellcome Collection, London (2015); Philaetchouri (in collaboration with Michel François), La Verrière, Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Brussels (2015).
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Ann Veronica Janssens
Hot Pink Turquoise 2020 Publisher: Louisiana Museum of Art and South London Gallery Language: English
Available here
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Ann Veronica Janssens
2018 Publisher: Institut d'art contemporain, Villeurbanne, with Kiasma, Helsinki Language: English / French
Available here
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Ann Veronica Janssens
Endless Andness: the Politics of Abstraction According to Ann Veronica Janssens 2013 Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic Langage: English
Available here
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