Mette Winckelmann
The Jolly Group

9 October – 14 November 2009

It is a great pleasure to present the third one-man exhibition by Danish artist Mette Winckelmann (*1971) at Galleri Christina Wilson, now in the new premises on Esplanaden.

Winckelmann will open the exhibition The Jolly Group with an invitation to a traditional South Jutland coffee party. In the installation "Oh, you must be pressed!" more than fourteen different kinds of cakes are served with coffee and punch, and works are included which describe the phenomenon and tradition of the South Jutland coffee party. These works include descriptions of cakes, as well as quotes from both South Jutlanders and "foreigners". Other works include the names of traditional folk dances. The folk dances were not written down, but people watched how they were danced, and then tried them out themselves. The names of the dances reveal influences from outside: The little Englander, The Scot from Hillerød and Fandango from Hardsyssel. The dances were organic, in that some things were added and others removed, and they were in general adapted to the local tradition.

The Jolly Group deals with how we identify with particular social communities and particular groups. Groups can be many things, because everyone has their own ideas of what they have in common with others, and this inevitably means that groups will consist of many systems. In the exhibition, Winckelmann introduces us to various systems, one of which is the South Jutland coffee party, and works are exhibited in widely differing media: paintings, textile collages, flags, ready-mades, ceramics, prints and embroideries.

Another system in the exhibition is our universe. On the floor is drawn a star which defines the centre. From the ceiling, paintings and textile works hang freely, and follow the star on the floor. Round about stand large ceramic jars at carefully calculated radii, as in a solar system. Together with the South Jutland coffee party, the exhibition comes to deal with the little history hidden in the big history. As such it becomes a tale of myths, identity and the history of the genders. From being a political focal point, the South Jutland coffee party altered over time to become the domain of women: a place where they rule in the battle to produce the most and the best cakes, but also have an opportunity to network with other women. New norms and hierarchies have thereby arisen.

In Mette Winckelmann's works, the abstract and the conceptual live side by side, as well as the masculine and the feminine. Her hard-edge paintings are a long way from the traditionally feminine, but neither do they represent a masculine abstract tradition. Winckelmann, almost to the contrary, constantly permits the two spheres to exist in parallel, where they are linked together and sometimes destroy each other. Her starting-point is the modernist tradition in which non-figurative painting is often associated with masculine coding. At the same time, she breaks down the masculine signs by continually contrasting them with a stylistic method associated with the traditionally feminine.

In recent years, Mette Winckelmann has exhibited both in Denmark and abroad. In 2008 she held a one-man exhibition at Nosbaum & Reding Art Contemporain in Luxembourg, and exhibited in Western Exhibitions, Chicago, USA and at the exhibition L'Art en Europe, Domaine Pommery, Reims, France. In 2007, she exhibited at MoA (Museum of Art), Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea. In Denmark we have seen her at HEART in Herning, and at the exhibition Til Vægs (To The Wall) at Charlottenborg, as well as at Sophienholm and Ovengaden.

For further information and press publicity, contact Galleri Christina Wilson at +45 32545206 or gcw@christinawilson.net