Kristof De Clercq gallery is happy to present a solo presentation dedicated to the work of gallery artist Léonard Pongo and a group presentation with works by gallery artists Agnes Maes, Vicken Parsons and Nahum Tevet at Art Brussels 2023.
Brussels Expo, Halls 5 & 6 | Place de la Belgique 1, 1020 Brussels
booths 5B-47 / 5B-49
Thursday 20 April 2023 (opening) | 11am - 9pm
Friday 21 April 2023 | 11am – 7pm
Saturday 22 April 2023 | 11am – 7pm
Sunday 23 April 2023 | 11am – 7pm
SOLO | Léonard Pongo (b. 1988, Belgium)
In his long-term project Primordial Earth, Léonard Pongo explores the diversity of landscapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo and offers us a loose, allegorical narrative of creation, apocalypse, and everything in between. By presenting the landscape as a living entity, a character of magical beauty, with a will of its own and indomitable power, the earth becomes for Pongo the source of a consciousness from which tradition, philosophy and conceptions of the universe spring. Pongo lets nature speak, without trying to translate it. From the traditions and cosmologies of the Kasai region, he introduces us to a world in which man is not the protagonist, but a character, subordinate to plants and animals.
Léonard Pongo began as a documentary photographer who gradually incorporated snapshot, diary and abstraction into his approach. His long-term project, The Uncanny, captured in the Democratic Republic of Congo, won him several international awards and worldwide recognition.
Pongo's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Africa, Asia, Europe and the U.S. and has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Washington Post, National Geographic and several other international publications. He was chosen as one of PDN's '30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch' in 2016, won the 2017 Visura Grant for Outstanding Personal Project and received the Getty Grant in 2018. Pongo is part of The Photographic Collective. His ongoing project Primordial Earth was shown at the Lubumbashi Biennial and the Rencontres de Bamako where it was awarded the 'Prix de l'OIF', and exhibited at BOZAR in 2021 and Mu.ZEE in 2022, Pongo's first solo museum exhibitions.
His work is part of the Flemish Community collection (FOMU collection), Mu.ZEE, the Sindika Dokolo collection and Chazen Museum of Art (Wisconsin, USA).
GROUP | Agnes Maes, Vicken Parsons and Nahum Tevet
Agnes Maes (1942-2016, Belgium)
The work of Belgian artist Agnes Maes is characterised by a great variation in form and subject matter, both in painting and drawing. Her work balances between figuration and abstraction, and is deeply rooted in what one could call the 'Flemish tradition of painting'. Both in themes, colour scheme, brushstrokes and layers, one can find references to and echoes of Raoul De Keyser and Roger Raveel. The very personal use of colour, the sensitive, intuitive brushstroke, and the lush, palpable light make Agnes Maes' paintings extremely sensual.
Vicken Parsons (b. 1957, UK)
Vicken Parsons is a British artist who studied at the Slade School of Fine Art. Her paintings characteristically depict architectural interiors and landscapes plunged in a warm and delicate atmosphere. The paintings are executed in thin, almost translucent layers of oil paint on small but thick wooden panels. The imprecise geometric fields evoke landscapes or partial views of interiors. These spaces come from both the artist’s memory and imagination, and possess an intimate quality that stands in contrasts to the monumental art of Parsons’s studio mate and husband, Antony Gormley. Parsons renders the paintings in a muted palette with occasional flashes of yellow, blue, orange or white.
Nahum Tevet (b. 1946, Israel)
Nahum Tevet’s poetic sculptural language is based upon the connections between painting, sculpture and architecture. His sculptures challenge the legacy of minimalism and conceptual art in daring and exciting ways. The ‘building blocks’ that comprise Tevet’s formal vocabulary, for both his small wall works and the large, sprawling sculptural installations are never ‘ready mades’. They are simple, almost archetypal forms: the chair, the table, the box, the boat, the book, etc. As viewers, confronted with a nested configuration of these ‘building blocks’ in different colours and measures, some right-side up, others resting on their side, some upside-down, we are required to constantly recalibrate and puzzle out an elusive ‘correct’ point of view. Tevet has been the subject of major survey exhibitions at both the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Tel Aviv Museum. His work has been part of exhibitions worldwide since 1975, such as numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe and the United States.
