Unseen Amsterdam: Stand 13

PRESS RELEASE

BLACK BOX PROJECTS

AT

UNSEEN AMSTERDAM

20 – 22 SEPTEMBER

BOOTH 13

VIP PREVIEW DAY 19 SEPTEMBER 

Black Box Projects is delighted to present a curated booth of new work by Adam Jeppesen, Steve Macleod and Liz Nielsen for the gallery’s inaugural showing at the eighth Unseen Amsterdam. Unseen Amsterdam is the leading annual event for contemporary photography showcasing artists, both emerging and established, who are pushing the boundaries of the medium. The fair brings together the international photography community to discuss and debate the future of photography and aspires to provide novel and diverse approaches to engage with photography. 

Liz Nielsen’s work is a contemporary application of one of the best-known avant-garde photographic processes - the photogram - which was first mastered by Man Ray and Maholy-Nagy at the beginning of the twentieth century. Each unique image is created without the use of a camera by placing objects directly onto photographic paper and exposing them to light. Black Box Projects will present a new series called Interdimensional Landscapes, where Nielsen has mined an archive of negatives taken in Yellowstone National Park, a place full of seismic activity and natural hotspots. For the first time she has created photograms printed over these traditional photographic compositions. The resulting works are dynamic and otherworldly. Nielsen creates impossible landscapes, abstracted and sublime. Nielsen is a Brooklyn-based artist whose works have been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Paris, London, Budapest, Amsterdam and Berlin. Liz Nielsen is one of the five nominees for the Meijburg Art Commission, the winner of which will be announced on 19 September during the opening night of the fair. (please see further information in Notes to Editors)

Adam Jeppesen is revisiting The Pond series of 2017, further pushing the possibilities within the materials, experimenting with softer focus, multiple exposures and playing with the scale of the works. The Pond is a body of work depicting the artist’s own hand, printed in cyanotype on linen. Ethereal in quality, the series is inspired by the decomposition process of the marshy ponds found in Denmark as well as being a comment on identity: self-identity as well as the collective identity of humankind. While Jeppesen worked more with his own personal experiences in his previous series, in The Pond he launches a new approach where a more universal concept of the beautiful and the imperfect in human existence takes centre stage. A floating hand, unattached to a body could be anyone’s hand, anyone’s identity and life, subject to a fate outside our control. The gallery will also show new work from the series Tanks (2017 – present), Here, Jeppesen transfers the idea of the pond and what lies beneath into the three-dimensional. Cyanotype-printed fabric is suspended in clear oil inside a glass tank. This delicate material is stretched and anchored by strings to create an abstracted, three-dimensional object. This series shows the beginning of Jeppesen’s departure from photography, and his move into sculptural works. A catalogue raisonnée of Jeppesen’s complete photographic oeuvre will be launched at the Foam museum during the Fair, and a book signing with the artist will be held on Black Box Projects’ stand. 

Jeppesen was nominated for the prestigious Deutsche Börse Prize and the KLM Paul Huf Award in 2009, the Prix Pictet in 2016 and is considered one of the greatest talents in contemporary Danish photography. He has exhibited at several international institutions including Foam (Amsterdam), C/O Berlin (Germany), Denver Art Museum (USA), Brandts (Denmark) and The National Museum of Photography (Denmark) as well as having work in their permanent collections. 

Finally, Black Box Projects will show a new series by Steve Macleod entitled Indigo. This is a series of 20 images shot in the Scottish Highlands and realised as silver gelatin prints toned with hot selenium to give the images an inky blue hue. Indigo never started as a photography project but was borne out of a period of time Steve Macleod spent in a secure mental institution after a manic bipolar episode.  At the time Macleod underwent Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and would have recurring dreams about indistinct mountain forms shrouded in inky blues and hazy purples - colours which are often associated with deep cognitive depressive states. These were not places the artist had visited in his native Scotland nor were they past memories– they were nameless reoccurring visions. During his time in the institution Macleod kept a diary and after every dream he would draw the shapes he saw– they are scrawled across his written diary entries and over time the shapes infested his waking hours too. Several years later Macleod noticed patterns in his landscape work where he was drawn to mountain ranges in the Scottish Highlands, the indigo dreams had subconsciously worked their way into his landscape projects in the same way that memories pop in and out of our thoughts. Macleod was unconsciously reconstructing something that terrified him but at the same time he was inextricably drawn to, manifesting as Indigo. 

As well as a landscape photographer, Macleod is an educator - a regular lecturer and speaker on photography subjects, he is a respected industry professional with twenty-five years’ experience. He is a Visiting Professor at UCS East Anglia; a Trustee of the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST); on the Patrons Board at the National Portrait Gallery, London; a Trustee on the Board for National Open Art and Lifetime member of Frontline Club in London. He also operates a successful mentorship programme for emerging artists. 

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Unseen Amsterdam

https://amsterdam.unseenplatform.com

Meijburg Art Commission 2019

KPMG Meijburg & Co and Unseen Amsterdam are proud to present the nominees for the Meijburg Art Commission 2019. The fifth edition of this prestigious prize focuses on multimedia artists with a strong focus on photography. The aim is to offer talents the opportunity to develop new work. The five artists selected for this year are Broersen & Lukács, Liz Nielsen, Johan Österholm, Peter Puklus and Marleen Sleeuwits. The international jury that reviews the entries consists of Jason Baron (Creative Director of Photography, BBC Creative), Marta Weiss (Senior Curator, Photographs, Victoria and Albert Museum) and Wilbert Kannekens (Managing Partner at KPMG Meijburg & Co). The Meijburg Art Commission will be awarded to one of the five nominees during the opening night of Unseen Amsterdam 2019, on Thursday 19 September. The Meijburg Art Commission is already a permanent feature of Unseen Amsterdam, now in its fifth year. For this prize, artists are asked to submit a proposal for a work that is given a place in the head office of KPMG Meijburg & Co, giving a creative boost to the experience of employees and customers. As a sponsor of Unseen, KPMG Meijburg & Co is the driving force behind the annual Meijburg Art Commission that culminates during Unseen Amsterdam when the winning artist is chosen. The winner will receive a project fund for the development of a work of art that will become part of the growing art collection of the tax consultancy.