N A N H O O V E R
"I am a painter"
Early video and late print works

4 April - 17 May 2009
S o l e d a d S e n l l e G a l l e r y
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
Monday - Saturday 11.00 - 17.00

Opening 4 April 17.00 - 20.00
performance by Christina Della Giustina
"Could you return it to me afterwards please?"

Nan Hoover (1931-2008) began her artistic career as a painter. In 1969 she settled in Amsterdam where, in 1973, she started exploring the then nascent medium of video. Inspired by Rembrandt and fascinated by the transparency of light and shadow, she transformed contrast and emotion into time and space.
The abstractions in the transition from subject to surroundings are reminiscent of landscapes, even when her own body is the subject, as in one of her earliest works, "Movements in Light" (1975), which will be shown at Soledad Senlle Gallery. Nan Hoover's pioneering work was recognised early on, with exhibitions in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Documenta 6 and 8.

The series "Watching Out", a trilogy (1983, 3 x 3 polaroid stills from the similarly titled video installation) casts an intense, breathtaking light upon her world of appearing and disappearing. Light and shadow transform her face, the gaze directed outwards, while she grants the spectator a glimpse of the underlying reality.

At the end of the Eighties she took up drawing again. The drawings shown in the exhibition are intimate, compelling and unmistakably her own. Using charcoal and pastels, she creates an optimum tension between light and dark, abstraction and reality, exploring the boundaries between the deepest black and the (sparse) brightest light.

The series "Ominous Mountains" from 2003 (Echigo-Tsumari, Japan) comprises 5 large-format prints that make use of a sort of ‘pointillism' created through an extreme blow-up of the photographic grain. Here, too, one is left searching, or wandering, in an unfamiliar terrain. The image does not let itself be easily caught in a single glance.

As she herself once said: 'I am a painter - everything I do is seen through the eyes of a painter. I only use different brushes from time to time.'

Nan Hoover discovered Soledad Senlle Gallery during an exhibition by her friend and studio colleague Christina Della Guistina. It was her express wish to make an exhibition in this space. The exhibition has come about in close dialogue with Christina Della Guistina. Soledad Senlle Gallery is honoured to be allowed to present these works in full accordance with Nan Hoover's wishes.

*could you return it to me afterwards please?" by Christina Della Giustina.
Live performance with sound and text, based on Christina Della Giustina's actual and imaginary conversations with Nan Hoover. They met each other in 2002 and developed a strong professional bond and a genuine friendship.

This exhibition has partly been realised in association with
Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst Montevideo/Time Based Arts (Amsterdam)
Gallery Sebastian Fath Contemporary (Mannheim)

In connection with the following exhibitions
S e b a s t i a n F a t h / c o n t e m p o r a r y
Nan Hoover
Art Amsterdam - RAI
13 - 17 May 2009

C e n t r u m K u n s t l i c h t i n d e K u n s t
Nan Hoover "Lightscapes'
Retrospective
Emmasingel 31, Eindhoven
7 February - 17 May 2009