Annet Gelink Gallery is proud to announce its first solo exhibition of Helen Verhoeven, showcasing new work by the artist. The exhibition will be opened during Festive Gallery Night during Amsterdam Art Week on 22 May between 17:00 and 21:00.
Verhoeven makes paintings, sometimes accompanied by ceramic work, stained-glass windows, print-making, film or installation. Her work ranges from very small to monumentally large and from simple and iconic to crowded and chaotic. Her work concentrates on the human experience: the turmoil of the individual and the hysteria of the group. Sometimes finely rendered, other times crude, she appropriates and inverts the traditions of state-portraiture, religious and mythological painting, the muse, the nude, the fantastical and the mundane. Within a kind of trans-historic space, her paintings depict rapture, dispair, indifference, lust, aggression, and estrangement.
In The Bakery, we show work by Wilfredo Prieto, known for his minimalist, ironic approach. His work Save Box (2014) questions the value we assign to art, merging minimalism with subtle critique. In addition to Save Box, Prieto’s latest documentary is on view. Viaje al Infinito (Infinite Journey) transforms the Cuban landscape into a large-scale conceptual path, embodying themes of movement, infinity and poetic absurdity.
Helen Verhoeven (1974) is a Dutch/American artist, based in Berlin, who grew up in the Netherlands and moved to the US in 1986. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1995 and in 2001 her MFA from the New York Academy of Art under Eric Fischl. In 2005/06 she was a resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, where she has been an advisor since 2021. Verhoeven was a recipient of the Dutch Royal Painting Prize in 2008, the Wolvecampprijs in 2010 and the ABN-AMRO Art Prize in 2019. Her work has been exhibited internationally in institutions such as the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, The Kestnergesellschaft in Hannover, The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, The Gemeentemuseum in Den Haag, The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Museum Nikolaikirche in Berlin, The Saatchi Gallery in London, the FLAG Art Foundation in New York and Kunstmuseum Bonn. Since 2023 she is a painting professor at Dresden University of Fine Arts.
Wilfredo Prieto represented Cuba at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024). His work has been exhibited worldwide at institutions such as Palazzo Contarini Polignac, Venice, Italy (2024); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2017); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014); S.M.A. K, Ghent, Belgium (2014); Dia Art Foundation, New York (2007); Kadist Art Foundation, Paris (2006); among others. Furthermore, the artist has participated in biennials such as 12th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey (2011); 57th, 54th and 52nd Venice Biennale, Italy (2017, 2011 and 2007); XIth Bienal Internacional de Cuenca, Ecuador (2011); 11th Biennial of Lyon, France (2011); 29th Biennial of Sao Paulo (2010); XIII, XII, XI, X, VIII and VII Biennial of Habana, Cuba (2019, 2015, 2012, 2009, 2003 and 2000); 1st Biennial of Singapore, Singapore (2006).
