June Crespo / Am I an Object, part III
11 September - 24 October 2021
Thursday – Sunday, 14-18 hrs
P/////AKT - Platform for contemporary art
Zeeburgerpad 53
1019 AB Amsterdam
The Netherlands
June
Crespo, Am I an
Object, part III,
installation views and details, P/////AKT, 2021.
Photographs by
Charlott Markus, courtesy of P/////AKT Amsterdam.
June Crespo is conducting research with a particular focus
on the relationship between the body and its representation. (…) The starting
point is a shape that can be traced back to the body, but the investigation
leads in different directions, constructing forms that allude to other things
as well (…) a sensual analysis of contemporary models of representation, commenting
on the actual and symbolical dynamics enveloping the body. Crespo’s interest in
the concrete and corporeal conditions of the object/body, as well as in the
immaterial contexts where it circulates and shifts – as seen in her recurring interest in figures such
as conductors and vessels – questioning contemporary life’s composite
configuration made out of material and discursive dynamics. In a moment in
which visual culture is dominated by stylized and hyper-perfect portraits, the
work challenges homogenous approaches to the corporeal, proposing dissident
images that liberate our gaze and our bodies themselves.[1]
As Crespo likes to work quite intuitively her approach for the project at
P/////AKT has been decidedly open – just two molds and a mental baggage of
older unexecuted ideas to experiment with. Other materials (large blocks of
Styrofoam, textiles, resin, flowers) began to arrive at the space since her own
arrival early August. Since then, things have been very much in progress. Or
rather, in a process that is based on, and executed as, an investigation
towards a state of transformation or in-betweenness.
A space and an artist working inside it, molding and casting, fluids
solidifying into objects with an outside and an inside, things that are hard
and things that are stretchy, the body and the object, the subject and the
object, the chicken and the egg. The answer to the question of what is leading
can, for the time being, only be answered by trying to find the right tension
and watching things transform into a state of ambiguity.
June Crespo’s show at P/////AKT marks the third part of the exhibition program Am I an Object. The program – that will run until
March 2022 – is further featuring projects by David Dale Gallery, Glasgow and
Suchan Kinoshita. It will be responded to in writings and events by students
from the Sandberg Institute Critical Studies Department.
The
Artist’s Library
The Artist’s Library is a growing collection
of titles that have, in one way or another, been relevant to the artist’s
practice. They will be on view during the exhibition and become part of the
P/////AKTSALON collection of books afterwards. June Crespo highly recommends:
– Lucy Lippard, Eva Hesse, Da Capo Press,
Boston, 1992.
– Clarice Lispector, Complete Stories,
Penguin Books, London, 2015.
– Lucy Lippard, Eros Presumptive, “The
Hudson Review”; Spring 1967; 20, 1; Periodicals Archive Online pg. 91.
– Cindy Nemser, An Interview with Eva Hesse,
first published in ARTFORUM, 1970, available on www.hauserwirth.com
About
P/////AKT
P/////AKT is a non-profit
exhibition space for contemporary art that organizes and facilitates large
scale solo presentations through which the audience gets the opportunity to
gain insight in the thinking space of the artists.
P/////AKT
provides a platform for exceptional, emerging artistic talents, who distinguish
themselves through their unique and authentic language and who are capable of
giving a different view on
the current way of thinking. They are stimulated to work out new developments and are
given the opportunity to present their work to a relevant audience. Furthermore,
P/////AKT always asks the artists to produce new work that relates to the
specific nature and dimensions of the given space and to present their own
mental space as an overall presentation within the given context.