Summer 2023 was an informative and transformative season.
Shifting and adjusting, water played a big role, protecting and guiding through many conflicted decisions and choices.
Water held.
I swam and I understood.
A lonely wet choreographed figure, dancing with the deep.
The big brilliant blue bore witness.
Cold, threatening, all consuming, yet calming and wise, lifted up into buoyancy.
To swim is to let go, weightless and free, small and insignificant in the knowledge that this is a motion older than time.
I like the idea that water has always and will always be there.
We return to water and we come from it.
Almost every cup we drink has at one moment almost definitely passed through a dinosaur.
Water is poetry and prose.
Water is old.
For millennia, artists have been guided by water, inspired, revealing itself in unending infinite possibilities.
Whether it be the physical act of cleansing, the sad shower, the long lingering bath, the party jacuzzi.
The refreshing lake jump, river crossing, plunge pool, pond and stream.
The wild Atlantic, The Pacific, The Indian, all converging, all inviting, open to our presence.
Wet trunks.
Hose pipe bans.
Taps, fountains, sprinklers.
Puddles. Swamps.
Hazy, foggy, steam.
Water is the quiet friend that makes a lot of noise.

(Text by Russell Tovey, 2024)

Grimm is pleased to present Swimming, a group exhibition curated by Russell Tovey, on view at the gallery’s Amsterdam location from 28 November 2024 until 11 January 2025. The exhibition brings together a selection of works by Alvaro Barrington and Dorus Tossijn, Andrew Cranston, Carroll Dunham, Jake Grewal, Brook Hsu, Derek Jarman, Cheyenne Julien, Anne Rothenstein, Wolfgang Tillmans, Caroline Walker, Shaqúelle Whyte and Xie Lei.

About the curator

Russell Tovey is an award-winning actor and podcaster. His podcast Talk Art has had over 10 million downloads and his first book, Talk art: everything you wanted to know about contemporary art but were afraid to ask, co-written with his podcast partner Rob Diament, became a Sunday Times Bestseller. Their second book, Talk art: the interviews, was released in 2023. He has curated multiple exhibitions in and around the UK, Paris (FR) and New York, NY (US) and he is a patron, benefactor and ambassador for many institutions and museums.

With special thanks to all participating artists and their representing galleries.