Annet Gelink Gallery is happy to announce the release of Awoiska van der Molen's third publication The Living Mountain, which is currently being presented in the gallery as part of the exhibition New Reproductions.
Awoiska van der Molen: ‘Regardless of how personal the starting point of my work may be, in the end I hope my images touch the strings of a universal knowledge, something lodged in our bodies, our guts, an intuition that reminds us of where we came from ages ago. A memory of our core existence, our bedrock, unyielding certainty in a very precarious world’.
In The Living Mountain Van der Molen probes deeply into the essence of the remote unspoiled natural worlds where her images are created. The book is published alongside the music composition ‘The Living Mountain’ written by Thomas Larcher as composer-in-residence at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam (2019-2020). The music piece draws inspiration from photographs that Awoiska made for Larcher in the mountains of his native Tirol (Austria). The monochrome landscapes are combined with reproductions of Larcher’s scores and remnants.
The title for both the composition and this book is taken from Nan Shepherd’s book of poetic prose on the Cairngorms mountains that she wrote in 1942 and which was first published in 1977.
Awoiska van der Molen” ‘The Living Mountain’ / 24 x 29 centimeter / 48 pages / Design: Hans Gremmen
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On view in the gallery
New Reproductions explores the correlation between publication, research, artwork, graphic designer, artist and institution. Next to the newest release, Van der Molen's earlier publications are featured in the exhibition as well: the 2014 publication Sequester and the later Blanco. In dialogue with the two publications, work by Van der Molen is on view in the show.
Without any references to a specific time or location, Van der Molen’s sceneries reach a level of abstraction that goes beyond the photographed subject: it looks for the “unspoiled core” of things, as the artist says herself. Her ongoing quest has brought the artist to travel to remote places from where she returns with few selected photographs on negative film. From the darkroom where she develops, images emerge, which have more to do with the artist’s experience of a place rather than a registration of reality. Van der Molen’s practice is determined by her isolation and total immersion in nature to the point where gaze and perception blur.
In the video, Van der Molen explains the relationship between her works and books and the creative process behind them. -
Awoiska van der Molen
#367-5, 2014 Silver gelatin print, 120 x 100 cm, Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs -
Awoiska van der Molen
#451-9, 2016, silver gelatin print, 120 x 100 cm, Edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs
