The Measurement of Presence

The Measurement of Presence
Iris Kensmil and Remy Jungerman
176 PAGES - 30 X 21.8 CM - SOFTCOVER - ENGLISH EDITION - ISBN: 978 94 9267 780 8 - € 30
For the Venice Biennale 2019, Benno Tempel,
director of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
curated the exhibition The Measurement of
Presence, in which he combines installations
by Remy Jungerman with wall paintings and
paintings by Iris Kensmil.
The Measurement of Presence is a
transnational presentation that explores
traditions and the past, bringing them into
contact with the present. Jungerman and
Kensmil gather influences from different
backgrounds.
Remy Jungerman is interested in the path
travelled by patterns. In his work he combines
motifs from Africa, Maroon culture, and
twentieth-century modernism. Iris Kensmil
invites us to expand our consciousness on
utopian twentieth-century avant-garde and
introduces us to Black female activists and
artists who have been neglected for too long.
This sensitive and critical stance towards
abstraction and modernism is what connects
the work of Jungerman and Kensmil. In
their work they combine the inspiration
they draw from twentieth-century utopian
abstract art – in particularly Mondrian and
De Stijl, the Russian avant-garde and stanley
brouwn – with elements of other traditions
and positions. In so doing, they size up the
world. They explore how the presence and
visibility of spirit and history are necessary
to exist. The exhibition also interacts with
the architecture of the pavilion, designed by
Rietveld.
The book is published on the occasion of
The Measurement of Presence. The Venice
Biennale 2019 takes place from 11 May ‘till 24
November.