From press release:
Perrotin Hong Kong is pleased to present the second solo exhibition by Jens Fänge in Hong Kong since 2017, featuring a body new paintings as part of greater mise-en-scene that will transform the gallery itself into a human-scale composition.
Often exploring the relations between people and architecture, Jens Fänge’s surreal compositions hint at profuse art historical influences, from the darkened archways of Giorgio de Chirico and the steely portraits of Tamara de Lempicka to Georges Braque’s faceted forms and Wassily Kandinsky’s colourful intersecting shapes. Yet Fänge seldom incorporates overt references, deferring instead to the vague and generic. What we see are impressions of art historical tropes—snatches of geometric abstraction in the pattern on a figure’s jumper, a picture of a Renaissance-style infant Christ on the wall of a domestic interior. Disparate styles and genres collide and converge through these clever painted elements and frames within frames, locating the work at once everywhere and nowhere. The parlour game of spot-the-reference leads to dead ends in the reality of our cultural canon but draws us deeper into the diegesis, prompting us to dispense with the certainty that anyone we think we recognise even exists in the universe of Fänge’s characters.
Often exploring the relations between people and architecture, Jens Fänge’s surreal compositions hint at profuse art historical influences, from the darkened archways of Giorgio de Chirico and the steely portraits of Tamara de Lempicka to Georges Braque’s faceted forms and Wassily Kandinsky’s colourful intersecting shapes. Yet Fänge seldom incorporates overt references, deferring instead to the vague and generic. What we see are impressions of art historical tropes—snatches of geometric abstraction in the pattern on a figure’s jumper, a picture of a Renaissance-style infant Christ on the wall of a domestic interior. Disparate styles and genres collide and converge through these clever painted elements and frames within frames, locating the work at once everywhere and nowhere. The parlour game of spot-the-reference leads to dead ends in the reality of our cultural canon but draws us deeper into the diegesis, prompting us to dispense with the certainty that anyone we think we recognise even exists in the universe of Fänge’s characters.
For more information:
October 18, 2022
