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until 03.08. | #4309ARTatBerlin | Galerie Max Hetzler (Bleibtreustraße) shows from 7. June 2024 the exhibition Teratology of Love by the artist Jeremy Demester.
Galerie Max Hetzler is pleased to present Teratology of Love, a solo exhibition of work by Jeremy Demester at Bleibtreustraße 45 in Berlin. This is the artist’s eighth solo exhibition with the gallery.
‘The word teratology or teratoid, when not being used by biology and medicine in an organic way, has a meaning that has to do with marvels, portends, monsters, mutations and prodigious things. The word teratoid, like the word dinosaur, suggests extraordinary scales, immense regions, an infinite quantity. […] Organic word meanings, when applied to abstract or mental structures, have a way of returning art to the biological condition of naturalism and realism. The marvelous meaning of that word has to be brought to consciousness again.’
– Robert Smithson, 1967
Ouidah, 16. May 2024
‘These paintings, assembled as a Teratology of Love, call us and lead us into the passages of time, those specific points of our consciousness where there can be no metrics. These paintings are markers. They let us know how much time has gone by since we set off, and how long is left till the finish line. They have come forth from a place that is as yet abstract, where reigning commands are not yet a law unto themselves.
Rather than rankings and distinctions, one same light bathes everything it touches.
That which our eyes have seen through our past lives, through our ancestors – be they human or non-human – we live and see, feel and experience through this unbroken chain of countless, diverse and sensitive existences. Cultures, idioms and skin tones no longer matter on this plane.
With these paintings I want to express what is most universal in me and most widely shared between all living beings: this blend of fears and loves that makes us who we are.
There is life here, and not just as a mere backdrop.
It is an expression of all that is possible, of the boundless motion of life.
It must be contemplated at all times, in all its forms, even the most seemingly remote.
The painting itself is proof of its innate presence, at once elusive and self-evident. It is a conduct that helps us to connect, read and then reconnect.
“And if all pure beauty stems from love, where does love itself come from, from what matter does its matter derive, from what nature its supernaturalness? Beauty comes from love. Love comes from attention. Simple attention to the simple, humble to the humble, an attention always alert to all forms of life […]”
– Christian Bobin, in Le Très-Bas (The very lowly), 1992
The paintings are born from a primeval world, from a place where elements are just barely separating, where the first shapes struggle to come into the light. A place awaiting the Word that has not yet been given.
These paintings are visions. They become the tangible evidence of the forms that flow through me. I take them in without judgement. They come to me, they are brought out by the hand, by the gesture, by the brushstrokes. Everything is both simple and infinitely precise during these moments – within a thousandth of a second to capture the exact expression of the line, and within a micron to achieve the liveliest shade.
It is not so far off from music; these are the infinitesimal sensations that I experience in my painting, the sensations that compose an opera as much as a flower, moving from the darkest confines of genesis to the radiant warmth of the heart of a buttercup.’
– Jeremy Demester
Jeremy Demester (*1988, Digne), lives and works in Ouidah, Benin. Demester’s work has been presented in institutional solo and group exhibitions, including at Fondation Zinsou, Ouidah (2024, 2021 and 2015); Villa Carmignac, Porquerolles Island (2023); Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Amsterdam (2022); Monnaie de Paris (2021); MUba Eugène Leroy, Tourcoing (2019); Stiftung zur Förderung zeitgenössischer Kunst in Weidingen (2018); Château Malromé, Saint André-du-Bois (2018); Museé d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne (2016); Palais de l’École des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2016); and Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris (2015), among others. In 2019, the artist and his wife Marie-Sophie Eiché Demester founded Atoké, a non-profit organisation that supports children in Benin by providing access to education, healthcare, nourishment and legal assistance.
Demester’s work can be found in the collections of Foundation Zinsou, Ouidah; Istanbul Modern; Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain Saint-Étienne Métropole; Patrimoine Hennessy; and Rennie Museum, Vancouver, among others.
Location: Bleibtreustraße 45, 10623 in Berlin
Vernissage: Friday, 7. June 2024, 6 – 8 pm
Artist talk: Saturday, 8. June 2024, 11 am, Bleibtreustraße 45
Exhibition period: Friday, 7. June until Saturday, 3. August 2024
Title image caption: Jeremy Demester, Teratology of Love I, 2024, Photo: def image
Exhibition Jeremy Demester – Galerie Max Hetzler | Contemporary Art – Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin – Exhibitions Berlin Galleries – ART at Berlin
