LONDON.- Maestro Arts in collaboration with
Shapero Modern present Jan Hendrix’s first UK solo exhibition, featuring works from The Aeneid Book VI, his most recent collaboration with Seamus Heaney.
Shortly before his death in August 2013, Heaney had completed his translation of the Aeneid Book VI and had started working on a collector's publication with Jan Hendrix and Hans van Eijk (Bonnefant Press). It was the proofs from this draft that enabled the Heaney family/estate and Faber & Faber (official publisher of Heaney’s work) to decide on the ‘final’ edition, published earlier this year to international acclaim.
Hendrix and Heaney had formed a friendship collaborating on two previous occasions. In 1992 Hendrix had illustrated The Golden Bough, Heaney’s earlier translation of a part of Aeneid Book VI. A second book, The Light of the Leaves, followed in 1999: poems mostly dedicated to his friends, all poets, Hughes, Brodsky, Herbert. It also carried images of the landscape of Yagul, this time printed in stark black and white on Nepalese paper.
For this latest collaboration, Hendrix has chosen to portray the landscape in a Dantesque setting in accordance with Book VI. Says Hendrix: “…As a farewell to a dear friend and a dear place, I have vowed never to return to Yagul again. The images are made in a panoramic fashion, as if standing on the great rock watching over the surrounding valleys. Strangely enough the cactuses that I portrayed in 1992 and 1999 and the years in between are now dying and disappearing.”
The exhibition and book launch on 24th January have the full support of the Heaney family and will be introduced by Seamus Heaney's daughter, Catherine Heaney.
In 2012, Jan Hendrix was awarded the Order of the Aztec Eagle, the highest Mexican award given to foreigners for his work in art and architecture. He is the third Dutchman to receive the honour. Hendrix was born in the Netherlands in 1949, his works range from artist’s books, print editions, enamel installations, etched glass, and paintings, to large-scale architectural projects. He has held an average of three to four exhibitions a year since 2000. A number of exhibitions have toured, being shown in China, Indonesia, Holland, Turkey and Australia. In recent years he has collaborated with numerous architects and is currently working on the façade of the new Mexican Museum in San Francisco.
His work is featured in public and private collections around the world including, Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, National Council for Culture and Arts of Mexico; Institution Ferial de Extremadura, Junta de Extremadura; the Bankinter Collection; the Baker & McKenzie Collection; the Caixanova Collection; the Museo de la Comunidad de Madrid; Rodriguez Acosta Foundation in Granada; Bibliothèque nationale de France; Bonnefanten Museum; Museum Von Bommel and Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte of UNAM and Irish Museum of Modern Art .
Collaborations with other leading book authors include W. G. Sebald, Gabriel García Márquez, Paolo Ruffilli, Bert Schierbeek and Homero Aridjis.
He was curator for the exhibition Alarca, 54 artistas contemporaneous, exhibited in Talavera de la Reyna and at the Beijing National Fine Arts Museum in 2006. He has been a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte, Mexico.
