Fairs

Frieze Seoul
​2023
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Pieter Jennes
I'm Glad There Is You

Booth B23

Dates_ September 6–9, 2023
Venue_ Hall C, COEX (fair map)

Frieze Viewing Room, Seoul Edition
Online, August 30–September 12, 2023
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Installation Views / Works / Press Release / Related Press

Gallery Vacancy is pleased to present Belgian artist Pieter Jennes’s solo project I’m Glad There Is You at Frieze Seoul 2023, booth B23. In this presentation, the artist brings forth a group of large-scale paintings, collage works, and handcrafted sculptures to transform the booth into a temporal site of banal absurdity. I’m Glad There Is You revolves around a terrifying fire at the Sarrasani circus in 1932, resulting in tragic deaths of circus animals and their exodus into the city of Antwerp. The presentation invites viewers to idyllic scenes which are filled with theatrical tension amongst the congregated crowds, the comical figures in motion, and omnipresent animals; the painted surface is encapsulated by a convivial atmosphere, revealed through maximalist visual elements of vibrant color, patterns, and texture. In Jennes’s surrealist interpretation of the historical event, the artist interweaves various layers of rich emotions, art historical references, and folkloric tradition. This presentation runs parallel to Jennes’s solo exhibition A number of days lead to nothing at Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, on view from September 2 to October 8, 2023.

The entire story begins with A life well wasted (2023) which depicts a harlequin dressed in Harry Styles’s glittering show costume. The dancing figure, holding and dropping matches attributed to his arsonist identity, appears alone at nighttime in the woods where the location is indicated by the hanging miniature house as tree chapels pervasive in the Flanders. The flock of silver frogs and the illuminated mosquitoes’ presence is a recurring device in Jennes’s practice, which consistently serves as the silent witnesses to the unfolding events, as well as threading together different pictorial frames, narratives, and space. The consequence of the harlequin’s action reveals vividly in My mother is watching (2023), as a panicking crowd gathers to put fire out on a burning cat. Set in a shallow and flattened space, the composition nevertheless stems from medieval illustrations of witch-burning scenes. Treating a black cat as the focal character, the artist rechannels the collective craze into a jolly cameo, subverting with a layer of humorous intensity. The rescue mission continues in The sounds? (2023), as a figure climbs up a tree, carefully reaching for the feline whose missing notice is collaged right at the bottom of the canvas. The tree climber echoes a recurring type in the genre paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder as viewed in Peasant and Nestrobber (1568). In Jennes’s representation, the circus animals’ excursion playfully parallels the communal search for his neighborhood cat in real life; oscillating between tragedy and comedy, the work captures a cloud of suspicion packed with dynamism and theatricality.

Enveloped by walls of nostalgic blue, I’m Glad There Is You evokes a jovial spirit that transiently tempers the danger and horror associated with the historical incident, constructing a storytelling that forges a deep link to the artist and his surroundings. The surreality and absurdity are further embodied by a set of stuffed cat sculptures in the booth space, creating an immersive experience across the boundaries of culture, history, and geographic location. Captured through Jennes’s contemporary folkloric lens, the mundane encounters in our daily lives are carefully deconstructed and collaged with a convivial facade and a hint of darkness always lurking beneath.

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