B.
Coming to your coffee table soon
Behind the scenes
On perusing Thames & Hudson's glossy new art publication, we saw a familiar name.
Opening of André Hemer's CASS, September 2012.
About a hundred years ago, as part of our Rolling Maul series at the NG gallery, we presented a show by a certain André Hemer. Combining painting (a particularly fine example we subsequently purchased for the collection) with a range of secondary outputs, Hemer considered how the popularity of Rita Angus's famous painting, and the fact that it has been replicated by artists, amateur photographers and even cake makers, affects how we see it: whether that fame and ubiquity dilute or amplify its significance.
100 Painters of Tomorrow, Kurt Beers, Thames & Hudson, 2014
Since then, we've followed André's career with interest, so it was terrific to see that not only is he included as one of Thames & Hudson's '100 painters of Tomorrow', but that one of his works, New Smart Object #64, was selected to grace the cover. We're not quite sure what a painter of tomorrow does today, but an artist as talented as André will no doubt find plenty to occupy himself with in both the present and the future.
100 Painters of Tomorrow, Kurt Beers, Thames & Hudson, 2014
Related
Collection
André Hemer CASS
Playing with ideas of distance and deletion, this work was prompted by the constantly multiplying online presence of Cass by Rita Angus, one of the most famous paintings in the Gallery’s collection. Images of, and relating to, Cass are freely available on the internet. They include legitimate reproductions, unauthorised copies and numerous responses to the original painting in the form of school projects and even Cass-themed birthday cakes. Here, André Hemer presents his own version of Cass, created using a process that echoes the many translations Angus’s painting has undergone – from traditional materials to new media and back again.
(Absence, May 2023)
Collection
André Hemer New Representation #2
Artists throughout time have adapted content, style and tactics in order to represent changing perception, ambition and experience. André Hemer combines new technologies with old to push painting beyond its usual limits. His digitally- and hand-worked canvases are exploratory and open-ended. He says of them:I like to think that put alongside one another in a museum of the future, these works will reveal themselves more than they do now – because they will be removed from the nowness that seems as persuasive as ever. For this reason perhaps, I am always wary of work that proposes strongly to know itself in the moment. … I paint to record, to investigate. I am proposing New Representation, but I do so while admitting that we may not know exactly what to make of what it is that we are experiencing.
(As Time Unfolds, 5 December 2020 – 7 March 2021)