BRUSSELS.- Xavier Hufkens' solo presentation of Lesley Vance won the SOLO Prize 2019 at Art Brussels yesterday. An international jury with members Raf Simons, Chris Dercon, Iwona Blazwick, Vanessa Joan Müller and Monika Szewczyk unanimously chose the presentation of Lesley Vance as the best solo presentation of the fair. They especially praised the artistic qualities of the work of the American artist and the simplicity of the presentation.
The SOLO exhibitions present work by established and upcoming artists and are spread throughout the fair. Art Brussels wishes to encourage galleries to make a distinctive statement by presenting one specific project by an individual artist. This allows the visitor to discover the work of an artist at greater depth.
The SOLO proposals are pre-selected by the International Selection Committee. The best SOLO artist in the fair is rewarded with the SOLO Prize of 10.000 euros. The SOLO Prize is supported by Van Den Weghe.
The members of the SOLO Jury 2019 are:
• Iwona Blazwick | Director, Whitechapel Gallery, London
• Chris Dercon | CEO, Rmn-GP, Paris
• Vanessa Joan Müller | Head of Dramaturgy, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
• Raf Simons | Collector
• Monika Szewczyk | Future director, De Appel, Amsterdam
Lesley Vance is an abstract painter whose visual language is rooted in her early engagement with still-life painting. Seeking to move beyond the boundaries of representation, Vance previously developed a process-based approach in which she translated everyday objects into abstract compositions.
While her work is included in several museum collections (like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, Hammer Museum, Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum), Lesley's work is still underexposed in Europe. With this presentation at Art Brussels, Xavier Hufkens wants to increase the visibility for her work in Belgium and Europe.
For these new works, Vance inverted her method. Freed from the rigours of direct observation, she now departs from immediate and improvised forms, often laid down wet-on-wet in concentrated bursts of activity. Henceforth, Vance allows the movements to follow their individual trajectories. Nothing is predetermined. As they coalesce, the artist will slow her pace in response to their singular and immutable logic. These variations in tempo, together with the dynamism of the swirling and looping forms, brings a new tensile strength to her work.
Lesley Vance (b. 1977, Milwaukee, WI) lives and works in Los Angeles. Solo and duo exhibitions include The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA (2013); FLAG Art Foundation, New York (2012); and Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick (2012). Notable group exhibitions include The Campaign for Art, SFMOMA, San Francisco (2016); Conversations in and Around Abstract Paintings, LACMA, Los Angeles (2015); Don’t shoot the Painter, curated by Francesco Bonami, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan (2015); Painter Painter, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2013) and the 2010 Whitney Biennale, Whitney Museum, NY.
