The Curious Image at Blain|Southern

12 May – 16 July '11

London

The past year have been very fruitful for Harry Blain and Graham Southern, the founders of Blain|Southern [and Haunch of Venison]. After an unsuccessful relationship with Christies, the two decided it was best to leave Haunch of Venison, which they founded in 2002, to start over.

The resulting gallery Blain|Southern has grown tremendously in the past year adding a project space in Berlin and plans to expand to New York City.

This next month they will be presenting The Curious Image, the first solo exhibition in the UK by the celebrated Dutch designer Jeroen Verhoeven [Cinderella Table].

The centrepiece of the exhibition is Lectori Salutem, 2010, a monumental creation made from highly-polished steel. While ostensibly a desk, its flowing contours and reflective surfaces play smoke and mirrors with the eye; from some aspects it looks like a machine, from others an object of hand-crafted beauty.

Like Verhoeven’s earlier Cinderella Table, 2005, which is now in the permanent collection of both the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the work combines highly skilled craftsmanship with complex industrial processes. One side of the desk seems to have been spliced in two, exposing the beauty of the engineering within. When the work is viewed from certain angles, two silhouettes can be seen, depicting Joep, Verhoeven’s twin brother, and Judith de Graauw, who work alongside him to form the Dutch design house Demakersvan.

Blain|Southern
21 Dering Street
London W1S 1AL