Andrew Kreps Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Fredrik Værslev, titled World Paintings at 22 Cortlandt Alley.
In his essay accompanying the exhibition, Dieter Roelstraete writes: "For all its obvious relevance as a sustained meditation on the vagaries of globalization in these challenging times of worldwide anti-globalist backlash, World Paintings is above all a reflection on the act, and art, of painting. Indeed, if the problem of so much “flag art” (think of every US flag masquerading as a work of art or showing up inside a work of art since Jasper Johns’ Flag) resides in the fact that most of the time we only ever see the flag, and rarely the painting – that the flag inevitably always ends up obscuring (“trumping”) the painting – then Fredrik Værslev’s “solution” to this problem has been to look for the painterly possibilities inside the flags of his choice, so to speak: to see the paintings, for once, and not just the flags."
To read Dieter Roelstraete's complete text, click here.
Fredrik Værslev (b. 1979, Moss, Norway) lives and works in Drammen and Vestfossen, Norway. In 2022, Værslev's work will be the subject of a solo exhibition at Frac Bretagne, Rennes, France. In 2018, the Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo, presented a survey exhibition of his work titled Fredrik Værslev, As I Imagine Him. Other past solo exhibitions include Städtische Galerie Delmenhorst, Delmenhorst, Germany, 2019, Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo, 2019, TAN LINES, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland, 2017, travelled to Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn, Germany, 2018, and Fondazione Giuliani, Rome, 2018, All Around Amateur, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway, 2016, travelled to Le Consortium, Dijon, France, 2016, Museo Marino Marini, Florence, 2015, CAC – Passerelle, Brest, France, 2015, and The Power Station, Dallas, 2014, among others. Værslev is held in the permanent collections of Astrup Fearnley Musset, Oslo, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, Le Consortium, Dijon, France, Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö, Sweden, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, and Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo, among others.