HIDDE VAN SEGGELEN is pleased to present Fragments, a new exhibition by renowned artist Ansuya Blom.
Opening on September 5th, the exhibition will present a comprehensive overview of Blom’s work, featuring seminal drawings, sculptures, and a continuous screening of her film, Lola Magenta.
Central to the exhibition is Blom’s ongoing series, …daß dieser Mensch…, initiated in 1988. This body of work, considered a meditation on the human condition, explores the intricate relationship between the inner and outer self. Through her drawings, sculptures, and films, she delves into the psychological and social factors that shape human experience, often focusing on marginalized individuals. Her lines, textures, and compositions are imbued with a sense of vulnerability and introspection. Blom’s work shows a desire to understand the incomprehensible, exposing a unique kind of vulnerability in the practice of drawing.
As Blom writes in a correspondence with Hendrik Folkerts:
For a long time, I have been apprehensive of the way society likes to exclude everything different. In the common sense thinking of what is ‘reasonable’, ‘not too many’, ‘not out of control’, there is no place for people whose suffering is too open and exposed. The idea of the abject fascinates me. At what point is someone or a group labelled a despicable entity and what happens in the perception of others? More and more, I see my work as an attempt at ‘sense-making’, an attempt to understand the incomprehensible. (Ansuya Blom in email correspondence with Hendrik Folkerts, 2020)
Lola Magenta, 2018 (film with sound, 11 min), offers a particular example of Blom’s engagement with the complexities of the human psyche. Her representation of Lola Voß’s existential predicament, i.e. her hospitalization at the Bellevue psychiatric clinic, through correspondence with her therapists, including the renowned existential psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger, provides a lens through which to examine the individual’s unique Dasein, as articulated by Binswanger. Blom’s interpretive framework, with images and intense voice-over, illuminates the complex interplay of Voß’s personal struggles, revealing a narrative imbued with profound human vulnerability and resilience.
Recent publication
Following her recent solo presentation at Landgoed Oud Amelisweerd, in cooperation with Centraal Museum Utrecht, Blom’s work is the subject of a new scholarly publication, Below the Underground. This volume, with essays by Laurie Cluitmans, Monika Szewczyk, and others, offers valuable insights into Blom’s artistic practice and its broader cultural significance.
Exhibition history
Ansuya Blom has exhibited extensively throughout her career. Her solo exhibitions include presentations at Camden Arts Centre in London, The Douglas Hyde Gallery in Dublin, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Her work has also been featured in the Aperto 90 La Biennale di Venezia. Blom’s films have screened at international film festivals such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin, IDFA Amsterdam, and at The Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Her work is held in public and private collections, including the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam, and Tate Modern London. In recognition of her significant contributions to the art world, Ansuya Blom was awarded the Dr. A.H. Heineken Price for Art in 2020.
Fragments is on view from 6 September until 11 October 2024 at the gallery in Hamburg. We will also present Blom’s work at Art Cologne (7 – 10 November 2024) and TEFAF Maastricht (13 – 20 March, 2025).
