Kati Heck presents new works at Frieze Viewing Room
Frieze New York 2020 is cancelled, but the fair has set up Frieze Viewing Room, an ambitious new digital initiative that is using augmented reality (AR) technology, offering users the ability to virtually view artworks.
Opening May 8-15 with a Preview May 6-7, Tim Van Laere Gallery will present new works by Kati Heck in a virtual gallery space as part of the Frieze New York edition.
Heck created a new series of works in which she portrays people who are in the middle of accomplishing their own mission. The works are tied together by their colors, content and various recurring details.
Kati Heck's masterful virtuosity is unmistakable. She portrays her figures in a photorealistic way with a great attention to every detail. She combines that precision with abstractions and parts that are applied almost sculpturally on canvas. With her works, Heck synthesizes different styles, combining elements from expressionism and surrealism with social realism. Her works are reminiscent of the bars, dancers and actors of Otto Dix and George Grosz, but also refer to Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Dada movement, Man Ray and the Old Masters.
In Ins Dunkel!, Heck portrays herself with a wolf leg. With this Heck refers to Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf and the ambiguity of our existence where our wild nature contrasts with our imposed culture and upbringing. In Steppenwolf, Hesse tells the story of Harry Haller, who, besides his life as a journalist, also roams the steppe of the world as a cruel wolf. That fascination for ambiguity and schizophrenia is also reflected in other facets of Heck's work. In the frame she applied sculptural elements in the form of sunflower seeds that also reoccur in the legs of the table she made. The table with four stools is an open space where different elements come together and give the opportunity for a conversation, a key element throughout the oeuvre of Kati Heck. In the center of the table top there is also an entrance to the interior of the table. This entrance is a trumpet which alllows a way not only for something to go in the table but also a way outside. On each of the stools there are copper plates with words: schwung, wir, gur and ding. The copper plates also reappear on the frames of the paintings and drawings with words like Knock- out Nono, BAFF I and BAFF II, a German expression for marvel.
Frieze Viewing Room - Frieze New York
8 - 15 May 2020
Preview: 6 - 7 May 2020
Frieze Viewing Room
KATI HECK, Great Piggy I, 2020. Gouache and pencil on prepared paper with 2 tea-bags, 161 x 120 cm. Courtesy Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp
KATI HECK, Great Piggy I, 2020 (detail). Gouache and pencil on prepared paper with 2 tea-bags, 161 x 120 cm. Courtesy Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp
