JAN HENDERIKSE – FACING NEW REALITY
2020-05-11Jan Henderikse, a Dutch-American citizen, was born in the Dutch city of Delft in 1937. He left his hometown in 1959 for Düsseldorf, Germany and from there he moved to Curaçao in 1962. In 1968 he moved to New York and lived for a few years in the iconic Chelsea Hotel. He embraced New York as his new hometown while maintaining studios in Berlin and Antwerp.
Henderikse was well aware of the new developments in the New York art scene with which he immediately felt an affinity with. In 1962 the legendary Sidney Janis Gallery presented ‘The New Realists’, an exhibition with Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and George Segal in combination with their European ‘Nouveau Realisme’ counterparts Yves Klein, Jean Tinguley, Arman and Daniel Spoerri. Henderikse knew his European colleagues quite well, having exhibited with them in the early days. They all shared similar ideas and felt the same in creating and welcoming this ‘New Realisme’. For them, no more old-fashioned painting, but instead now facing New Reality.
Opposite – PP 11-A, 1966
Exhibition runs through to May 15th, 2020
The Mayor Gallery (Frieze Viewing Room)
21 Cork Street
First Floor
W1S 3LZ
London
