Dear Art Friends

Copenhagen, September 30, 1988.

I am delighted to invite you to the opening of MEZZANINEN on October 7, 1988, from 14:00 to 20:00.

STALKE Gallery and MEZZANINEN have combined their activities under one roof after moving from Admiralgade 22, with the only difference being that Galleri Jedig is now called MEZZANINEN. Several of Galleri Jedig's regular artists will still be presented, along with a new and exciting selection of emerging young artists.

Thus, Galleri Jedig has closed but has reopened as MEZZANINEN with 300 square meters of exhibition space. Over Galleri Jedig's five years of active operation, a solid network of contacts has been established, which means that MEZZANINEN will continue to offer you many interesting new exhibitions featuring both Danish and international artists.

The program has been further enhanced with lithographs by Danish artists of high quality. STALKE Edition continuously publishes lithographs by interesting artists, which are presented at MEZZANINEN.

We hope to see you at the opening of MEZZANINEN on Friday, October 7, 1988, from 14:00 to 20:00.
Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday from 11:00 to 18:00,
Wednesday from 11:00 to 20:00.

Best regards,
Sam Jedig

Review

From the Otherworldly

Ian Schals’ pictures are beautiful in an anxious way

‘Stalke’, Mezzaninen, Vesterbrogade 15A, Copenhagen V. Until November 30.

THE ROMANTIC landscape painters of the 19th century gladly positioned themselves in nature to make meticulous cloud studies, as if they had only then become aware of everything that stretches above the earth. From their standpoint, they outlined and depicted the clouds' shifting formations as a thin veil, protecting them from the great unknown universe. Furthermore, they often recorded time and place to highlight the special—and exact—nature of the entire session. Ian Schals does the opposite.

As a child of his time, he is perhaps tired and confused by his knowledge. Therefore, he sees a personal platform in the unknown, ‘a weightless airy celestial space’, as he calls it in the introduction to his exhibition. From his floating, otherworldly position, he paints clouds over old maps, whose place names are finely distributed like a dense graphic structure.

It is subtly neo-romantic—and beautiful in an anxious way. The sculptures are more distinct and ‘inward-searching’ and freeze the tension field between, for example, a base and a hanging point. Here he seeks, in his own words, the ascetic, aesthetic, naked, and fine. Schals has a tactile sensitivity and close contact with nature's great mystery. From his metaphysical starting point, he can freely maneuver in all directions and perhaps venture further toward greater and bolder expressions.

Peter Michael Hornung

Sam Jedig

Stalke Galleri, Vesterbrogade 15, Copenhagen.

Born 1959.

Runs Stalke Galleri together with Joakim Rothenburg.
He primarily works with conceptual art but also has a department for outsider and younger artists, called Mezzanine. Sam previously ran Galleri Jedig.

"There haven’t been many good galleries in Copenhagen to allow artists to have exhibitions, gather together, and hold larger exhibitions, for example in Charlottenborg.

We try to encourage and support conceptual art by showcasing it for those already established as well as students in education.

There are so many different directions in art today, and it can be difficult to pinpoint one specific direction. However, here in Denmark, something has definitely started to come together with 'De Vilda', a movement that began in the early 1980s and has since influenced the art scene for this decade..."