andreas eriksson - year in, year out

Das sagt der/die Veranstalter:in:

neugerriemschneider is pleased to present "Year in, Year out", Andreas Eriksson’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. This presentation stems from a year of reflective, focused near isolation and continued exploration of the artist’s own approaches - a unique initiative within his otherwise prolific practice. Retreating to his studio in rural Sweden, Eriksson freed himself from any self-imposed expectations, concrete endpoints or boundaries, allowing himself to further develop conceptual and practical approaches to artmaking in fluid, natural, unconstrained strides. The results of this 12-month process are on view here, including new paintings, silkscreen works and hand-woven textiles.

Contrasting the thematic nature of his previous exhibitions at the gallery - the first of which featured works woven from a diverse archive of linens, followed by a suite of aerial, nighttime impressions in paint - the grouping currently on view takes process as its locus. In direct reference to the presentation’s title, itself an evocation of progress as a function of time’s continuous passage, Eriksson centers the value of time itself, which manifests here in varying in scales and media as acute, impassioned attention to detail, and engrossment in painting’s technical aspects.

From the distinct care paid to the properties of each work’s surface, to the customized batch production of select oil paints and close consideration of their physical application, Eriksson shapes compositions that derive exceptional depth from their extended periods of creation. Two cycles of paintings, differentiating themselves with dramatically varied coloration, lend the endeavor structure by encapsulating the year’s passage: While darkened earth tones emulate the sensation of entering the shortening days of fall and winter, bold fields of bright pigments indicate in seemingly real-time emerging into the bloom of spring and summer. Taking up the tact of these painted works is an eight-part silkscreen and a large-scale linen tapestry, both mirroring this tonal dichotomy in near monochrome.

A floor-to-ceiling woven curtain sees threads of red-dyed wool handwoven in geometric balance. Inspired by the exterior of Eriksson’s studio in Medelplana, a vernacular Swedish structure with siding of overlapping wooden slats, this work translates the built form into textile. Here, he replicates the context of the exhibition’s creation and inverts the outward-facing perspective of his landscape-like paintings. In portraying the atelier’s façade - both a barrier to the world and an outward allusion to what may lie inside - the length of tapestry muses on the tradition of studio as sanctuary: one that acts as a site of seclusion and a venue for visual representation of the often unspoken. This engagement is expanded by a strip of thin, loosely woven wool as it forms a gauzy banner. The airy fabric’s weave, nearly translucent against incoming daylight, tightens to a one-to-one reproduction of a window from the artist’s home. While Eriksson’s work primarily focuses on the natural world, this architectural approach finds root in his presentation at the 54th Venice Biennale’s Nordic Pavilion, for which he created sculptural platforms shaped after his house’s floor plan.

A publication designed by Eriksson, also entitled "Year in, Year out", accompanies the exhibition at neugerriemschneider. Black outlines of the works on view in accurately scaled-down form adorn its pages. With the compositions’ evocative colors removed, Eriksson’s experimentation with size - from wall-filling to singularly intimate - is brought to the forefront.

Andreas Eriksson (b. 1975) has been the subject of international exhibitions, including those at Thielska Galleriet, Stockholm (2023, upcoming); Skissernas Museum, Lund (2021); Nordiska Akvarellmuseet, Skärhamn (2020); Cahiers d’Art, Paris (2020); Braunsfelder, Cologne (2019); Kunstforum Baloise, Basel (2015); Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2014); Trondheim Kunstmuseum, Trondheim (2014); Centre PasquArt, Biel (2014); Reykjavik Art Museum, Reykjavik (2014) and mumok - Mxuseum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna (2008). Eriksson was selected to participate in the third Jeju Biennale, Jeju-do in 2022, and in 2011, created works for a presentation with Fia Backström at the 54th Venice Biennale’s Nordic Pavilion, Venice. Andreas Eriksson lives and works in Medelplana, Sweden.