Following recent solo exhibitions at Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Kunstmuseum Basel, and the National Museum of Art, Oslo, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery is delighted to present Berlin-based Danish artist Kirstine Roepstorff’s first one-person exhibition in London. This is also her first showing in London since being part of Gesamtkunstwerk: New Art from Germany, Saatchi Gallery, London earlier this year.
Structures brings together a new body of work consisting of what Roepstorff terms ‘appropriarrangements’; collages that freely appropriate, manipulate and arrange symbols of social and value systems into new, poetic landscapes.
Roepstorff uses the structure of a grid to create a relationship between surface and signs, or symbolism. The grid provides a non-narrative space upon which the illusion of a narrative takes place through the visual arrangement of pictorial ‘incidents’, both abstract and figurative. Processed images of Chinese lanterns, archive shots of parachutists, detailed Arts and Crafts movement photographs of plant life, and references to one of the world’s longest running regattas, point to a diverse array of social structures. Appearing in a hybrid space with abstract forms that recall flags, graph movements and drips of paint, the viewer is invited to focus on the space in between – a space where values and ideologies pertaining to the referenced social structures are ‘floated’ and tested within and beyond the composition.
Roepstorff’s collages consist of delicate arrangements of photocopied paper that are highlighted and coloured to offset and de-hierarchise the information in the image that is processed. Tuning into a non-verbal sensibility, the bright colours become triggers for an emotional navigation of the work as much as functioning as abstract devices. Moments of light and shadow, the black and white photocopy in itself is embraced as a process that renders uniform each quoted image. Within this ‘democratic’ arena, the sharpness and tone of the images vary through devices such as enlargement and repetitive copying, working together with the colours to encourage the eye to read across the surface of the collages, unable to separate the parts from the delicately balanced whole.
Kirstine Roepstorff has recently had solo exhibitions at the National Museum of Art, Oslo; Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Kunstmuseum, Basel; the Drawing Center, New York; Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense; MUSAC, Leon; and Kunstraum, Innsbruck. Recent group exhibitions include KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Denmark; 21er Haus, Belvedere, Vienna; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Saatchi Gallery, London; Kunsthall Oslo; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; CCA Andratx, Mallorca; Zabludowicz Collection, London, and the 4th Fotofestival, Mannheim. Roepstorff’s next solo exhibition is at the Kunstpalais Erlangen, Germany in July 2013.