The Perimeter is pleased to announce Cruel The Night Café by Florian Krewer, opening on Tuesday 25 November. This exhibition marks the first presentation of the gallery’s new space, set to be redeveloped as an extension to The Perimeter’s upcoming programme.
Held in the neighbouring site of the Blue Lion Pub, the establishment dates back to 1627 from London’s post-Elizabethan era. Layered with histories as a former public house on a working mews, the building has previously been in operation since 1824.
In response to this location, Florian Krewer presents a new body of small-scale paintings and works on paper. Cruel The Night Café intimately explores underground nightlife scenes, in relation to the notion of the artist bar as a collective gathering space. The unfamiliar backdrop of the pub provides a new vantage point on this series of works, where Krewer depicts interior narrative scenes, including images of clubs, parties, drag queens, musicians, animals and Venetian masques. Situated between traces of past and present histories, the patina of the building echoes the scenes and surfaces found in Krewer’s paintings. Characterized by a strong tactility and a versatility in paint application, he plays with the dialectic relationship between smooth and coarse surfaces, rendering elements in thick impastos set against a smooth background - uncovering a tension in both the texture and subject matter of the material.
Alongside this exhibition, The Perimeter has produced a limited-edition publication, interlaced with images of the artist’s works and personal archives. The catalogue is designed by Moritz Tibes, with a text written by Hiji Nam. In conjunction with the exhibition’s closing, The Perimeter will be hosting a book launch and finissage at the Blue Lion Pub on 10 January 2026.
Florian Krewer (b. 1986, Gerolstein, Germany) produces paintings born from obsession, fantasy, and desire. Rooted in personal experience and filtered through the artist’s imagination, Krewer’s paintings begin from photographs and memory, where he strips away the details of character, place, and time. Primal needs, longing, and precarious interactions are transmitted to the canvas with the greater intention of revealing our collective vulnerabilities.
Represented by Michael Werner Gallery, Krewer lives and works in the South Bronx, New York. In 2017, he graduated from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he studied painting under artist Peter Doig. He has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions across North America, Europe and Asia. Krewer’s works are held in institutional collections internationally, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; K21, Düsseldorf; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among others. The artist is the 2022 recipient of the Prix Jean-François Prat awarded by the Bredin Prat Foundation, Paris.
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For press enquiries or images, please contact Fabian Strobel Lall: fabian@strobellall.com
