09.19.2024-12.07.2024
MAKING THE LANDSCAPE
A group show
Opening this autumn, GOWEN is delighted to propose a group presentation of artists whose works have expanded the possibilities of the landscape genre. Featuring both Swiss and international artists, Making the Landscape follows the transformation of the landscape from a genre often considered as minor in classical traditions to a primary means for artistic experimentation.
Persuaded by the certitude that many of the major revolutions in art history have occurred within the scope of the landscape genre, the show explores this category in contemporary art. Recognising the Romantics engagement with emotion, individualism and the drama of nature, or the Impressionists disruptive characterization of light, the subverted use of colour of the Fauves, or even the shifting paradigms and ideas of the Land Art movement, the landscape genre continues to serve as a vehicle for discourse on modern, societal concerns as well as global and cultural shifts, including climate change and the fragile, often perilous state of the environment and its resources. The overcoming of the hierarchical conception of the relationship between man and nature is also echoed by the contemporary visual production.
With this agenda in mind, Making the landscape includes around twenty international contemporary artists whose visual language engages with landscape, reimagines, and transforms the imagery and canons of the genre. The show proposes an inquiry into the complexity of contemporary compositional modes and techniques of the landscape genre and aspires to capture some of the defining paradigms and trends of our time.
Image
Nicolas Party
Rocks and Trees, 2017
Soft pastel on pastel card 73 x 50.5 cm
Private Collection, Switzerland. Courtesy GOWEN, Geneva