Paris-SCOPE: Hans van Meeuwen

HANS VAN MEEUWEN
SENSE
SEPTEMBER 5 – NOVEMBER 9, 2013
OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 6-8PM

Projective City is pleased to announce Sense, an exhibition focused on a singular, surprising, large-scale sculptural work by Hans van Meeuwen. The piece was conceived in direct reference to the gallery’s architecture and the viewer’s gaze.

When van Meeuwen was a teenager in the Netherlands, peepshows were an exciting topic of conversation. He remembers a striptease dancer talking about how she had a good idea of who was behind the peephole. Van Meeuwen was struck by this admission, and thought about both the comfort in supposed anonymity as well as the rush of confrontation. For Sense, van Meeuwen utilizes the voyeuristic nature of Paris-Scope by forcing viewers at Mixed Greens to literally peep through a hole in the wall to view his sculpture.

For years, van Meeuwen has worked to create figurative sculptures of disembodied limbs (tree, human, and animal) that astonish the viewer with their location and scale. Sense is no different. Our perception, our comfort as viewers from a distance, and our own bodily experience are all questioned with a simple look through a tiny viewer.

Hans van Meeuwen was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Art and Design. In 1987, he was a finalist at the very prestigious Prix de Rome prize for emerging artists. Van Meeu- wen has shown extensively in Europe and the United States including solo exhibitions at Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany; Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche, Osnabrück, Germany; Kunstverein Baden-Baden, Germany; Galerie Deschler, Berlin, Germany; Lokaal 01, Antwerp, Belgium; Christinerose, NYC; Galerie Carla Stützer, Cologne, Germany; ADO Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium; and the Durst Organization in NYC. Residencies include the Fine Art Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and the Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, NY. His public art has appeared at the Arte Luise Kunsthotel in Berlin, and is on permanent installation in public spaces in Amsterdam, Leeuwarden, Huizen, and Zeist, all in the Netherlands. Van Meeuwen currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

TAGS: hansvanmeeuwen / paris-scope / vanmeeuwen