Universes 2

exhibition | NOVEMBER, 2019

Following the successful exhibition held in 2018 in Italy, Juxtapoz magazine's contributing editor, writer, and curator, Sasha Bogojev, has teamed up with The Garage Amsterdam for the 2nd edition of this showcase. Presenting the works of artists whose creative practice relies on building their own casts of characters, settings, and events, Universes 2 features 13 international artists.

Having figuration as the connecting point between their works, the images are derived from a wide range of sources such as photography, popular culture, cartoons, comics or manga, surrealism, classic portraiture, and even abstraction. Active in the most dynamic and stimulating time of the history, they are exploring these inputs through a variety of aesthetics ranging from polished pop-art depictions all the way to expressive, gesture-based depictions.

The result of such a vigorous work environment creates a vibrant selection of trailblazing images that both celebrate traditional painting as a technique and experiment with the whimsicality of the modern world. Regularly imbued with some level of humour, the pieces in the show are often referencing to the issues of contemporary society or personal matter through the use of quirky imagery and unconventional concepts. On a technical and contextual level, such works are profoundly challenging the viewer who is both seduced by familiar elements and perplexed by the overall scene.

Participating artists are Anna Park, Pedro Pedro, Jonny Green, Kirsten Deirup, So Youn Lee, Baldur Helgason, Ralf Kokke, Maxwell McMaster, Trey Abdella, Gosha Levochkin, Elliot Dodd, Jur De Vries, and Royal Jarmon.