MINUS SPACE is very excited to announce the solo exhibition Jan van der Ploeg: BIG CALM.  This is the Amsterdam-based artist’s second exhibition with the gallery and it will feature a site-specific painting installation.

For his exhibition, Jan will present two new acrylic on linen paintings featuring intricate black and white patterns.  The patterns are informed by a number of diverse sources, including Maori weavings, Islamic ceramic tiles, Portuguese azulejos, and Italian architectural marble designs, among others.  The paintings will be installed directly on top of an ambitious floor-to-ceiling wall painting covering all four walls of the gallery.  The wall painting will consist of narrow vertical red, green, and blue stripes that repeat at regular intervals throughout the space.  We will also have available a new limited-edition print by the artist (Untitled, 2010, silkscreen on paper, 50 x 40 cm, edition of 25) as part of his exhibition.

About Jan’s work, artist, curator and writer Michelle Grabner states, “…his paintings expand the best of contemporary non-objective work in their shear boldness and fearless scope, the entirety of the painting’s dynamics are always greater than the architecture that supports them…The impact of van der Ploeg’s paintings is located at the intersection of sensation and thought, between the work’s graphic visual impact and its conceptual underpinnings. His paintings are welcomingly antagonistic to narrative. Signifying instead a powerful commitment to the commingling of the familiar, new and strange potentials of color and form.”

Over the past two decades, Jan van der Ploeg (b. 1959) has exhibited his work extensively in both solo and group exhibitions in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, including at venues such as The Suburban (Chicago), Smart Museum (Chicago), Gallery Sonja Roesch (Houston), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Gemeentemuseum (The Hague), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Galerie Asim Chugthai (Berlin), Konsortium (Dusseldorf), Centre d'Art Neuchatel (France), Center for Contemporary Non-Objective Art (Brussels), Sarah Cottier Gallery (Sydney), Goddard de Fiddes Gallery (Perth), and Hamish McKay Gallery (Wellington).

Jan’s first solo exhibition at MINUS SPACE in 2006 was the gallery’s inaugural exhibition.  His work was also included in our recent group exhibition MINUS SPACE, curated by Phong Bui, at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York in 2008-2009.

In addition to his artistic work, Jan founded and directs PS (www.psprojectspace.nl), a highly-regarded exhibition space and program based in Amsterdam.  Committed to new abstract and conceptual art, PS aims to provide a platform for the work of upcoming international artists in an environment that exists between the conventions of an artist-run space and a commercial gallery.

SUPPORT
Jan van der Ploeg: BIG CALM is generously supported by the Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam. MINUS SPACE's programming is made possible by the support of The Golden Rule Foundation, as well as individual donors. We thank you!

ABOUT MINUS SPACE
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