The summer group show is a gallery programming staple the world round, and it’s many gallery goers favorite time of year to see work by up-and-coming or lesser-known artists. But now that the season is coming to an end, many of the galleries are starting to close for their holiday breaks. But if you’re worried you may have missed the boat on the summer shows, fear not: here are five group shows worth checking out that are up through August.
“Summer Bliss” at Setareh Gallery
While summer shows can sometimes to fall prey to the picturesque, expect no pulled punches in this group show. The rather raucous exhibition includes eerie figures, unreal landscapes, and digital meltdowns, among other un-idyllic scenes. Among these, Gregor Gleiwitz’s forceful abstractions appear at times like underworld labyrinths while Japanese artist Maki Na Kamura’s acid-hued landscapes and abstractions can have a similarly disorienting effect.
“Summer Bliss” is on view through August 31, 2019, at Seterah Gallery, Königsallee 27-31, Düsseldorf, Germany.
“Summer Show 2019” at Plus One Gallery
London’s go-to gallery for hyperrealism, Plus One inaugurates its newly relocated gallery space with a slick set of highly-detailed paintings filled with the trappings of summer—peaches, melting ice cream sundaes, and colorful straws which give the show a kitschy self-awareness. Tom Martin’s crystals-meet-smoke-machine tableaux are especially fun, and read like the witch-obsessed millennial’s update to the still-life genre.
“Sunbaked Thirst With Love” at ENA Viewing Space
The Budapest gallery Everybody Needs Art has been putting on playfully experimental exhibitions since it opened in 2013. Curated by Peter Bencze, “Sunbaked Thirst with Love” is no exception, showcasing the mythic and monstrous oversized sculptures of Tom Volkaert and Zsófia Keresztes, installed on the gallery’s industrial rooftop. Gargantuan titled turquoise blue eyelashes stare out vacantly at tangled creatures, some with long licking red tongues. Viewed under the heat of the summer sun, these fantastical beings seem give the effect of a fevered delirium.
“Sunbaked Thirst With Love” is on view through September 15, 2019, at ENA Viewing Space, Budafoki út 10/C, Budapest, Hungary.
“Fritz Winter: Early Works, Bauhaus and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner” at Galerie Henze & Ketterer
Born in Germany in 1905, Fritz Winter became well-regarded in his native country for his Art Informel-style abstract works. Winter began his early career as an electrician in coal mines, but trips to Belgium and the Netherlands inspired him to pursue art making as a profession. He joined the Bauhaus, where he studied under the likes of Josef Albers, but nevertheless cultivated his own distinct style. This informative exhibition centers on Winter’s works from this early period up to 1939, when he was drafted into the German army. On view alongside these are works by Paul Klee and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, two artists who were influential to Winter’s artistic development (and the latter of whom was a mentor to Winter). In the 1960s, Winter largely distanced himself from the art world. This exhibition is a chance to re-encounter an artist who since had largely faded from narratives of the period.
“Fritz Winter: Early Works, Bauhaus and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner” is on view through September 21, 2019, at Galerie Henze & Ketterer, Wettsteinstrasse 4, Riehen, Switzerland.
“Summer Guests” at Galerie Ludorff
The continuous tug-of-war between figuration and abstraction takes a nearly archaeological turn in this exhibition, with three artists who seem to study the history of this opposition. Pieter Vermeersch takes abstractions he finds hidden in figurative work (like the monochromatic backgrounds of Old Master paintings) as the basis for his paintings, while Michael van Ofen dissects “outdated” genres like seascapes and hunting scenes, using their compositional techniques to create abstractions that nevertheless hint at their figurative sources. Meanwhile the artist and “earth collector” Herman de Vries has accumulated some 9,000 soil samples from around the world, which he applies to paper in meditative marks. A scientific rather than gestural impulse underpins these works that hints at the fundamentally “abstract” nature of the very figurative world.
“Summer Guests” is on view through August 31, 2019, at Galerie Ludorff, Königsallee 22 III, Düsseldorf, Germany.