Remy Jungerman at Piet Mondrian's birthplace
Mondrian's work has played a key role in Remy Jungerman's development as an artist. By bringing together fragments of Surinamese Maroon textiles and other materials from the African diaspora with colours and compositions from Modernism, Jungerman broadens our view of (art) history. From 19 April, a selection of his work will be on display at the Mondrian House.
The Mondrian House is delighted that Remy Jungerman has accepted the invitation to create new work in Piet Mondrian's birthplace. For this exhibition, Jungerman will create a wall installation consisting of a grid on which Jungerman will "map" his journey to discover a language that brings together the different cultures that have shaped him as an artist. The work titled Three Rivers shows Jungerman's ongoing project to select water samples from the three rivers that connect his life and work: the Cottica River in Moengo, Suriname, where he was born, the Amstel River in Amsterdam and the Hudson River in New York, where he now lives and works. Three Rivers invites a broader reflection on the historical connection between New York, the Netherlands and Suriname stemming from the transatlantic slave trade and the huge impact this great movement of people and art traditions has had on art history. As Jungerman notes, "Mondrian himself is a powerful example of this movement: he left his homeland, immersed himself in a new culture and enriched his work by incorporating influences from black culture and the rhythms of jazz into his later paintings."
The Maroon people of Suriname are descended from Africans who escaped slavery on Dutch plantations to settle in the rainforest. The lattice fabrics the Maroons wear during Winti rituals (Winti is an Afro-Surinamese religious practice) and the Kaolin clay they smear on their bodies to purify themselves and ward off negative influences are key elements in Jungerman's work.
In the space where the museum displays early works by Piet Mondrian, Jungerman will honour his artistic "ancestor" with a sculpture entitled "Posu Yaw". Posu means shrine or altar in Sranan Tongo, the language of Suriname, and Yaw refers to a Ghanaian custom of naming children based on the day of the week on which they are born. Enslaved African people who arrived in Suriname from Ghana continued this naming tradition. Mondrian was born on Thursday 7 March 1872 and Yaw is the Ghanaian word for Thursday. Besides these original works created especially for this exhibition, a selection of older works by Jungerman will also be on display.
About the artist
Remy Jungerman (1959, Moengo - Suriname) lives and works in Amsterdam and New York and is one of today's leading Dutch artists. In 2019, he represented the Netherlands at the 58th Venice Biennale and in 2022 he received the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for the Arts, the largest visual arts award in the Netherlands. Under the title: Remy Jungerman: Behind the Forest he had a retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 2021/22. His work has also been shown in places such as Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Johannesburg (South Africa) and Belgrade (Serbia).
The artist is represented by Goodman Gallery in London, Johannesburg and Cape Town, by Fridman Gallery in New York (US) and Galerie Ron Mandos in Amsterdam.
Jungerman is also co-founder and curator of the Wakaman Project, Drawing Lines - connecting dots. Wakaman, what rambling man means, was born out of a desire to explore the position of visual artists of Surinamese descent and raise their profile(s) on the international stage.
Publications
Published in 2019 Remy Jungerman. Where the River Runs , published by Jap Sam Books. Two years later, to accompany the solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the publication Remy Jungerman. Behind the Forest. His third book, Tracing the Lines: Patterns of the African Diaspora, was also published by Jap Sam Books and made possible by the Heineken Prize . These publications will be available from 19 April at the Mondrian House museum shop.
Off the Grid | Remy Jungerman can be seen at the Mondrian House from 19 April to 12 October 2025.
