September 12-- October 11, 2008
Catalogue available with essays by Denise Carvalho and Lara Taubman
Florence Lynch Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Linda Van Boven. The exhibition is on view from September 12 to October 11, 2008. An opening reception will be held at the gallery on Friday, September 12, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
For her third one-person exhibition with the gallery, Linda Van Boven presents a new body of work comprised of photographs and light-boxes. These images she associates with memories from her youth and important events from her life. The theme that unites these works is hope, the future, and fear.
Denise Carvalho describes one of the new works as follow: Light box #19 features another series of three images: an electric wire dangling from a bright but fuzzy light, an out-of-focus image of a child in a bathtub, and a small rectangle of light reflected on the wall of a corner of a room. The simplicity and apparent disconnection between these images in which light is the only common denominator suggests the frailty of memory and fragmented emotions. Associations with the meaning of light as language help us to decode the elements of the work, in which light is equated with the birth of a child, and the bath water with the mother's womb. In another frame, the wire is an obvious pun, as it materializes and distributes energy. The birth of a child can be all of that: energy expenditure, a lively home, and a peaceful contemplation centered in the affairs of the home.
While a paragraph from Taubman's essay aptly states "Linda Van Boven's new series of light box installations and photographs "Eventually the Dreams will Alter" reinforces her consistent use of images familiar to viewers. Children, house, beds and sleeping are images that lead us deep into personal memories because we recognize them as private places -- the bedroom, the symbol of sleeping in the daytime -- perhaps the woman is depressed? Dimly lit streets, mothers with their children in a city street, a forest, an urban landscape in the daytime -- all of these images represent incidental qualities that are filed away like forgotten memos amidst and between the necessary files of everyday chores. Images are lifted out of the banality of daily life identifying personal symbolic narratives that emanate from Van Boven's broken, juxtaposed images allowing them to resonate with deep psychological poetry."
Linda Van Boven was born in Arnhem, The Netherlands; she lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. She has participated in group exhibitions in Europe and the U.S. and has worked on several public projects in The Netherlands, Russia, and Italy. Since 1995 to date, she has won over twelve public commissions, with the Hudson Corporation, Gemeente Amsterdam, H.H. vormgeving, KPGM International, Randstad Uitzendburo in Haarlem, and Randstad Uitzendburo, Amsterdam, among others. Her work is in the Martin Z. Margulies Collection, The Deutsche Bank, Conde Naste, among many other public and private collections.
The exhibition is generously sponsored by the Mondriaan Foundation and the Consulate General of the Netherlands.
Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 to 6:00 p.m. For further information and photographic material please contact Beatrice Campa at 212-924-3290.