Private Property Amie Dicke

 

For her second solo exhibition with Peres Projects, Amie Dicke will present an installation of new sculptures that continues her investigation of 3 dimensional forms referencing classical and contemporary notions of beauty. Dicke's new sculptures are made of various materials, including paint, cast/poured plaster, found objects such as vintage fur, masking tape, glass and furniture, as well as her now well-known works on paper incorporating found imagery from magazines.

 

Dicke's Private Property series is inspired by the works of the influential German photographer Helmut Newton, whose photographs of glamorous female models, often in the nude, marked and defined an entire world-view towards female beauty in the 1960s-1990s. Dicke, who often looks to popular culture, particularly fashion magazines for inspiration for her sculptures, has in recent photo shoots with international photographers such as Mario Sorrenti, embodied the persona of Newton's women. No doubt these projects have lead to her focus on Newton.

 

However, Dicke's Private Property series bares little if any resemblance to Newton's work beyond the title of the series. Rather, she has utilized these ideas in expanding her visual vocabulary and to incorporate new fragile materials that remind us of the temporality and the fragility that is the essence of beauty.

 

Amie Dicke was born in Rotterdam in 1978 and received her degree in Fine Art from the Willem de Kooning Academy of Fine Arts in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Dicke's work is currently on view at the Frye Art Museum, Seattle (US) in the exhibition "Swallow Harder: Selections for the Ben and Aileen Krohn Collection," curated by chief curator Robin Held. In Germany, her work will be on view at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt in the exhibition "The Youth of Today" ("Die Jugend von Heute"), curated by Matthias Ulrich from April 7th to June 25th, 2006. Prior exhibitions include: "Downwards," Fries Museum, Buro Leeuwarden, The Netherlands; "Untitled Series: Pin up: Contemporary Collage and Drawing," Tate Modern, London, UK; "Verwilder," Visionaire Gallery, New York; as well as in galleries in NY, Tokyo, Amsterdam, and Peres Projects, Los Angeles. Dicke's work has been widely reviewed and featured in publications including ArtForum, V Magazine, Gas Pressing, Art Monthly, Elle, Dazed & Confused, The Independent, Metro Life, The Sunday Telegraph. A monograph of her work entitled Void was published by Artimo and is available at the gallery. Her work is in the permanent collections of Museum Het Domein, Sittard; The Museum of Modern Art, Arnhem; City Collection of Rotterdam through the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.

 

The artist currently lives and works between Rotterdam and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

 

Private Property will be on view at Peres Projects, Berlin (Schlesische Strasse 26, Kreuzberg) through April 22, 2006.