V22 ASHWINSTREET

JEROEN OFFERMAN - 24 CARAT STRAWBERRY MOUSSE

Jeroen Offerman is a Dutch artist, who in recent years, lived and worked in London, Berlin, Rotterdam and… London again. He is one of those artists whose work ranges from sculptures to music to video to performance and manages to turn this eclecticism into an advantage as well. Londoners might remember his pet-fly Henry, who lived in a tiny cage and toured the gallery-world as a mini-superstar-hero. Or perhaps they saw (and heard!) him singing Led Zeppelin’s "Stairway to Heaven" on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral, in reverse!

For his first solo-show in London Offerman will show a tiny jewel of work. It’s a field-flower, a weed, mummified in pure gold while it was still alive. Glory! It’s a bit like that girl in the Bond-movie Goldfinger, what’s her name? Jill Masterson, right. Played by the actress Shirley Eaton. She died, minutes after her body had been totally covered with gold-paint, do you remember? Or King Midas, a bit of a silly bugger of a guy who wished he could turn everything he touched into gold. Anyway, come and see for yourself.

Next to this Offerman will show an older piece which is part of the permanent V22 Collection. This piece is a video-installation called "the Great Escape". The synopsis for the Great Escape goes like this: "When a man is offered the possibility to change his life-expectations for good, he doesn’t hesitate a moment and seizes the opportunity". According to Offerman this piece is more a painting in the tradition of the German Romantics like Caspar David Friedrich. “The wanderer above a Sea of Mist” or "Monk by the Sea" but then in a more contemporary outfit. So that it reminds us of 20th century science fiction movies in which mankind is saved from self-destruction by aliens in big flying saucers. "Like Close Encounters of the Third Kind" or "the day the Earth stood Still". Is that it? Perhaps or perhaps not. At the moment we are cleaning out the spaces in the gallery to install the work. We’d like to welcome you there soon. Klaatu Barada Nikto.

Jeroen Offerman’s work has won several awards worldwide. He recently showed at the YBCA in San Francisco for the exhibition "Underplayed". This summer his work “the Great Escape” will be exhibited at the Hamburger Kunsthalle for the show "Sea-Pieces II: from Max Beckmann to Gerhard Richter". Jeroen Offerman is a researcher at Goldsmiths College, London.