January 12 - February 18, 2012
Opening reception: Thursday, January 12, 6-8pm
Gallery 1: Thomas Scheibitz
Gallery 2: Mat Collishaw
Thomas Scheibitz
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is very pleased to present A Panoramic VIEW of Basic Events, an exhibition of new paintings, sculptures, drawing/collages, and prints by Thomas Scheibitz. For his seventh solo show with the gallery, Scheibitz continues to draw from classical painting and architecture, the contemporary urban landscape, and the influence of popular culture. Filtering these sources through his own lens, he creates evocative and powerful pieces that blur the line between abstraction and figuration.
In a palette of murky grays, smoky purples, and pale blues, paired with sharp primaries and vivid neons, the new paintings and sculptures in A Panoramic VIEW of Basic Events are full of recognizable componentsÑthe numeral "1," a backwards comma, a peering eye - interwoven with the artist's own invented geometric assemblages. Culled from his archive of ephemera, which includes newspaper clippings, snapshots, magazine ads, plates from art books and historical texts, as well as other cultural artifacts, Scheibitz's imagery is pared down to its barest formal properties, then recombined, layered, and expanded upon. For the first time, Scheibitz shows the viewer how he works with his cache of source material to build compositions: pairing seemingly incongruous found images in collages, he then adds drawings that riff on their formal properties, and hint at how all these components might be synthesized into a painting or sculpture. These "worksheets," and in fact the installation as a whole, serve as an investigation of composition across disparate media, as the artist shows us how each element of his practice relates to the others. Breaking down his formal vocabulary into its constituent parts, Scheibitz lets us into his creative cosmos, showing the viewer the connections within this new constellation of works.
Organizational systems, such as maps, graphs, and charts, have long been of interest to Scheibitz, and have served as the starting point for many of his most iconic pieces. In this new body of work, instead of using the map as a formal point of departure from which to create an abstract composition, Scheibitz creates a map of his own process -- an overview that demonstrates how each piece fits into a cohesive whole. While existing autonomously, each image can also be connected to the other works in the show. The collaged drawings are displayed on a table made by the artist that resembles both an independent sculpture and a pedestal, and each of these collages reference one of the sixteen small paintings installed on the walls of the main space. In some of the collages the finished painting even appears as an element, complicating the notion that the works on paper are studies for the paintings. Rather, each is its own related but independent final product.
Installed in the back room, and seemingly a composite of the smaller works in the front gallery, the main work in the exhibition, unfurls across the wall. In this piece, from which the show takes its title, Scheibitz explores how imagery can be recombined; compositional elements that might have existed autonomously as small paintings become details within a larger work. The endless reconfiguration of imagery is the basis of the series of prints installed in the gallery's entryway as well. Titled for A.G.C.T., the four nucleic base acids that make up human DNA, these pieces similarly represent the foundations of Scheibitz's practice. In lush color, the prints depict combinations of objects and images from Scheibitz's archive, precisely arranged in unexpected combinations and juxtapositions. These prints also refer to the concept of "Schlagbild" or pictorial slogansÑimages that convey as much meaning as a headline, or a block of text. While each image is important, its arrangement is equally crucial; and in his careful composition of these pieces, Scheibitz references Aby Warburg, a 20th century professor who created a non-heirarchical approach to image classfication. Like Warburg, Scheibitz employs his own methods of visual organization to create works that are at once readable and enigmatic.
Based in Berlin, Scheibitz has upcoming solo exhibitions at MMK, Museum für Modern Kunst, Frankfurt Am Main, Frankfurt, Germany and at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus Ohio. Notable recent exhibitions include Thomas Scheibitz: Lineage ONE / Stilleben & Statistics, Jarla Partilager, Berlin, 2011-2012 (solo); Thomas Scheibitz: Il flume e le sue fonti/ The River and its Source, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2011 (solo); Surveyor: An exhibition of human exploration, observation, and construction of the landscape, organized by Curator Heather Pesanti, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 2011 (group); If Not in This Period Of Time - Contemporary German Painting 1998-2010, Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Brazil, 2010-2011 (group); A moving plan B - chapter ONE, Selected by Thomas Scheibitz, The Drawing Room, London, 2010 (group); Der ungefegte Raum, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Austria, 2010 (solo); among others.
MAT COLLISHAW
Vitacide
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to present the sixth solo exhibition of work by British artist Mat Collishaw. Collishaw creates sculpture, installation and photo-based works that confront issues of moral ambiguity with formally stunning and alluring imagery, and often re-contextualize the impact of more disturbing or sinister subject matter. Mining the fertile ground between seduction and repulsion, reality and artifice, the works captivate the viewer with their compelling incorporation of beauty and horror in equal measure.
A Gothic style is reflected more in the subject matter than in the actual presentation, as the artist seeks to embody elements of this tradition in a contemporary context. Collishaw's work often provokes an emotional reaction, simultaneously induced by fear and wonder. Upon further contemplation however, the viewer encounters ideas that underlie both the immediate beauty and the initial darkness - additional layers that provide a depth of understanding and elevate our emotional connection to the work.
Last Meal on Death Row, Texas, a photographic still life series in dramatic Baroque lighting, depicts the last meals requested by Texas inmates on death row. Based on 17th century Dutch still life paintings, or "nature morte" works, these humble photographs in simple wood frames elicit profound human connections. Sad vignettes presented with dignity, they present a cruel irony - meals offered as sustenance at the moment of extinction. Within each of these memorials for the incarcerated, we glimpse, without judgment, the man within the monster.
These thirteen photographs are arranged near The Corporeal Audit, a sculpture in negative relief depicting the deceased body of Christ. A horizontal rod of light placed behind the work, which is based on a Renaissance sculpture, vertically traverses and illuminates its shallow image to create a spectrally enlivening effect. The light, moving in a cold, mechanical manner like an MRI or CAT scan, provides an odd contrast to Christ's luminous being, which seems to drift between heaven and earth.
In addition to art historical references, Collishaw's work also refers to literature - J.G. Ballard, Jean Genet, and J.K. Huysmans are among the influences at play here. In the main gallery, eight resin sculptures entitled The Venal Muses, pay tribute to Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal, 1857, a book of poetry focused on the themes of decadence and eroticism. The flowers appear to be genetically altered, the delicate petals infected with human scars and sores. Housed in antique-style vitrines, the collection resembles a cabinet of curiosities, the contents of which are both viscerally provocative and transcendent. These works display the dark side of humanity, presenting an interest in the corruption of nature without being critical of it. Like Huysmans' Against Nature, Collishaw's flower works are reflections of the depraved state of self and society, exacerbated by our modern, media-saturated culture. As the venal nature of the mainstream media is engineered to entice with fear, the artist also incites our polar attractions to beauty and corruption.
The Gomoria video sculpture, which also employs flowers, incorporates six LED monitors housed in an 18th century Gothic church altarpiece. The piece evokes beautiful images in a theatrical setting, turning the gallery into a chapel - and with The Venal Muses, a nod to Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece. Images depicting the cycle of life and death offer symbolism within the abominations of nature. The ecclesiastic origins of the shrine and the apocalyptic interests of the Gothic style question the traditional idea that nature was created to be beautiful.
Lastly, Collishaw's ongoing Insecticide series of crushed insects documents the metamorphosis of a 3-dimensional being into a 2-dimensional image, while reminding us of our own vulnerability. Although the artist uses digital photographic means, the works were inspired by Victorian magic lantern slides, which were designed to kindle and capture the imagination. Velvety bodies and delicate wings display a world of rich, lucid colors, evoking the opulent, detailed embroidery of Elizabethan portrait paintings. Dust of disintegration against rich, black backgrounds transforms the bodily powder into celestial scenes of great beauty and awe, as if offering a glimpse into the infinite nature of the universe. An image of death and destruction is preserved here as an elegant keepsake
Mat Collishaw's work was recently exhibited in the 12th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey, curated by Adriano Pedrosa and Jens Hoffmann, 2011 (group), as well as Magic Lantern, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2010-11 (solo exhibition); Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, 2011 (group); Phantoms Shadows and Phenomena, Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio State University, Athens, Ohio, 2011 (group); La Forêt de mon rêve, Galerie d'Art du Conseil Général de Bouches-du-Rhône, Aix-en-Provence, France (2011) and Retrospectre, a special installation at the British Film Institute, Southbank, London (2010). His work can currently be seen in Memories of the future, at The Olbricht Collection, Paris.
|
