Mette Winckelmann: Lend and Borrow

Wilson Saplana is pleased to present artist Mette Winckelmann's first solo exhibition in the gallery, Lend and Borrow. For the exhibition, Winckelmann presents new geometric, material, and tactile paintings that freely investigate seemingly fixed dimensions such as economy, power, and gender.

 

With a precise rectangle of green limestone from the Danish Island Bornholm, artist Mette Winckelmann occupies the floor of the gallery's front room. The measurement of the stone installation takes form and material from the freedom pillar that towers over Vesterbrogade in front of the gallery, commemorating the abolition of selfdom when Danish farmers became free, inaugurating a new economic chapter in Danish history. The exhibition's narrative thus extends out onto street level and far back in history. From here Winckelmann composes the aesthetics and materiality of the works, freely associating to the history and emotions of art and economics, to the industrial and economic flourishing of the 18th century, and to transnational collage and patchwork traditions, whose community practice and optimization economy can be dated to East Asia before the Western time calculation. 

 

The exhibition is thus based on the site's local context and historical context, and economy and power balances are woven into both form, content, and aesthetics. Winckelmann's works are abstract, and through intersecting lines, circles, room divisions, and intersections of shapes and colors, several layers of meaning are evoked. The works are both deep and soft, sharp and prickly, and if you look closely, hints of recognizable signs from banknotes, from the stock market and mathematics, as well as from myths and stories about gold and growth emerge. 

 

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Mette Winckelmann is educated 1996-97 from the Academy of Art and Design, Bratislava, Slovakia and 1997-03 at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. She has exhibited nationally at Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, Munkeruphus, Augustiana, Overgaden - Institute for Contemporary Art, Gl. Holtegaard, Sorø Kunstmuseum, and at Le Bicolere, Paris. Her works are in collections at SMK - National Gallery of Denmark, HEART - Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Viborg Kunsthal, and at Christiansborg.