Folkert de Jong
EXHIBITED AT THE SAATCHI GALLERY
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Click on the images to enlarge
Folkert de Jong
The Peckhamian Mimic:
2007
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, artificial gemstones
Log approx: 90 x 530 x 105 cm Figure: 158 x 40 x 105 cm |
 
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Folkert de Jong’s figurative installations combine a touch of ironic Old Master tableaux vivant-style composition with a strong dose of the macabre. His polyurethane foam mannequins have an arresting life-like quality, which makes their dirty and broken down facture all the more affecting.
Frozen in permanent gestures like ventriloquist’s dummies (The Peckhamian Mimic, 2007), sometimes quasi-drunkenly gurning or grinning, as in Asalto de la Diligencia (2008) or expressionlessly looking on, these posturing figures have an eerie charge, like carnivalesque puppet grim reapers rising from the detritus of post-industrial culture, poignantly made out of a material that will not last. |
Folkert de Jong
Seht der Mensch; The Shooting Lesson (and details)
2007
7 figures
nstallation variable approx. 800 x 800 x 300 cm |
 
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Thematically, De Jong’s carefully decayed constructions often deal with unfair deals, profiteering, and the ghosts of colonialism and imperialism. The figures in The Dance (2008) all happen to be made from a single mould, based on a composite of a 16th-17th century trader character amalgamated from historical figures such as Pedro de Alvarado, Peter de Minuit and Hernan Cortes, as well as Rembrandt’s Nightwatch.
The installation recalls the monument in New York’s Battery Park celebrating the Dutch purchase of Manhattan for some beads and mirrors; here, as the artist explains, “the clones are trading with themselves, their own kind, ripping off each other and dancing towards their destiny; self-destruction.” The characters’ grand, nightmarish song and dance has a deathly tone, with its symbolic black coating, like dripping tar. |
Folkert de Jong
The Dance
2008
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, artificial gemstones. Overall installation.
190 x 400 x 300 cm |
 
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There is something inherently perverse about making such carefully crafted figures out of a material so trashy, fragile and ephemeral. The desolate figures in The Shooting Lesson (2007) recreate characters taken from Picasso's Les Saltimbanques, melancholy harlequins reminiscent of the cycle of life and of human powerlessness. “We humans have to face the fact that we are part of a natural process, no matter who or where you are on planet earth. It is embedded in our system, but there is hope! Morality, intelligence and compassion can save us.” |
Folkert de Jong
The Dance - The Player (detail)
2008
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, artificial gemstones.
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Folkert de Jong
The Dance - J.P. Coen (detail)
2008
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, artificial gemstones.
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Folkert de Jong
The Dance - Balthazar G (detail)
2008
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, artificial gemstones.
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Folkert de Jong
The Dance - A.J. Renders (detail)
2008
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, artificial gemstones.
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Folkert de Jong
The Dance - Gulden (detail)
2008
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, artificial gemstones.
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Folkert de Jong
Asalto de la Diligencia (and details)
2008
Styrofoam, pigmented polyurethane foam, coloured acrylic sheets
300 x 120 x 300 cm |
 
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Folkert de Jong's BIOGRAPHY
Born 1972 in Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands
Lives and works in Amsterdam
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2011
Operation Harmony, James Cohan Gallery, New York Brandnew Gallery, Milan, IT
2010
The Balance Luis Adelantado Gallery Mexico City 27 Nov
2009
Circle of Trust Selected Works 2001-2009, Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands
Luis Adelantado Gallery, Valencia, Spain
A Thousand Years of Business as Usual, James Cohan Gallery Shanghai, Shanghai, China
The Shooting, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
2008
Xu Zhen, Folkert de Jong, Martha Colburn, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY
2007
Les Saltimbanques, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY
Mount Maslow, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY
2006
Gott Mit Uns, Kunsthalle Winterhur, Switzerland
2005
Golden Dawn, Peres Projects, Los Angeles, CA
Museum Het Domein, Sittard, The Netherlands Medusa’s First Move: The Council, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK
2004
Prix de Rome/Life’s Illusions
Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2003
Meetme and Mister Beefy, The Netherlands Foundation for Fine Arts, Design and
Architecture, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2002
Marlin says, Playstation Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Meet me and Mister Beefy, USF Bergen, Norway
2001
The Iceman Cometh, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, The Netherlands
2000
The Ilemauzer, De Vleeshal, Middelburg, The Netherlands
1999
De Verschijning, Tilburg, The Netherlands
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2011
The Shape Of Things To Come: New Sculpture, Saatchi gallery, London
Cryptic: The Use of Allegory in Contemporary Art with a Master Class from Goya, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
Shape of Things to Come: New Sculpture, The Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
Luis Adelantado Gallery Mexico City, Mexico
2010
Blue Devil with Remy Jungerman Metis-NL Gallery Amsterdam Hareng Saur: Ensor and Contemporary Art SMAK Gent
Folkert de Jong & Remy Jungerman Metis-NL Gallery Amsterdam
Monumental: Contemporary Figurative Sculpture Herbert Johnson Museum of Art New York
A Love Story works from the Coleccion MEFIC, Palacio de Don Manuel Évora, Portugal Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
2009
Innovations in the Third Dimension: Sculpture of Our Time, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT
Fendry Ekel, Remy Jungerman, Folkert de Jong: The Rhetoric of Doubt, curated by Astrid Honold, André Simoens Gallery, Knokke, Belgium
2008
Styrofoam, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
Double Diplomacy, with Fendry Ekel, Galerie Gabriel Rolt, Amsterdam
Against Nature, Luis Adelantado Gallery, Valencia
2007
MASK, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY
Fractured Figure, Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection, Deste Foundation, Athens, Greece
Destroy Athens, Athens Biennial, Athens, Greece
Summer Show, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY
Chronic, Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, Illinois; travelling to Museum Dhont Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium
2006
Extimate, Poetry Summer 2006, Watou, Belgium
A Brighter Day, James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY
I Love My Scene, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY
Long Live Sculpture!, Museum Middelheim, Antwerp, Belgium
Reverence, The Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, Peekskill, NY
Sculptures 2006, Landgoed Anningahof, Zwolle, Netherlands
2005
Gods & Monsters: Folkert de Jong, John Kleckner and Andrew Mania, Peres
Projects, Los Angeles, CA
Roberts & Tilton Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2004
The Dark Album, Maureen Paley Interim Art, London, UK
The Eternal Body, Galleria Villa de Massimo/KNIR, Rome, Italy
Open Studios, ISCP, New York, NY
2003
Sea and Music Sculpture Manifest, Centre for European Art China, Xiamen, China
Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Prix de Rome 2003, Museum for Contemporary Art GEM, The Hague, The Netherlands
2002
Stroomversnelling,Groninger Museum, Groningen, The Netherlands
Alien Workshop/The Centenarian, TENT, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Drawings, Playstation Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Proeftuin,Centre for Visual Arts, Dordrecht, The Netherlands
Purchases 2002, Centre for Visual Arts, Dordrecht, The Netherlands
Wishful Thinking, Public Space, Dresden, Germany
2001
Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Alien Workshop, De Fabriek, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
2000
Chemould Gallery, Bombay, India
1999
Open Studios Rijksacademy for Visual Arts, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Consortium, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
1998
Open Studios, Rijksacademy for Visual Arts, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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