June 02, 2006

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Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, Munich Sprüth Magers Projekte, Munich White Cube, London Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles David Risley Gallery, London KRAVETS | WEHBY, New York Hauser & Wirth, Zürich         sign up!

Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, Munich ASTRID KLEIN Photography has played a key role in Astrid Klein’s oeuvre since the mid 1970s. Her approach to photography differs from the traditional documentary use of the medium: Astrid Klein uses photographic material taken from film, TV, advertising and journalistic texts, which she manipulates. She inverts colours, layers images, adds fragments of texts to the images or overexposes them. Furthermore, text is another important medium, which the artist, who studied painting and sculpture, has employed in her work since the beginning of her artistic career. She uses language like a formal artistic medium, where text appears overlaying or selectively sedate in blocks and fragments. Astrid Klein attempts to eliminate the viewers’ possibility to recognize familiar images: in doing this, she questions the viewers' perception. The observer, who is looking for empathetic reference points and memories in his perception process automatically, is led astray by a misconceived recognition of the aesthetic material, for example a filmstill. Because the image in question does not represent a specific event, it can no longer be equated to its original composition but must be viewed as a timeless pictoral fragment. Read on...press release [german] Read on...press release [english]

Sprüth Magers Projekte, Munich Mari Eastman : Sittings The title “Sittings” refers to the genre of portraiture, yet the artist has introduced different interpretations. An advertising campaign for Versace by Steven Meisel, 2001, inspired Mari Eastman to do strongly coloured women portraits. She has been clearly influenced by Karen Kilimnik, who also shares the enthusiasm for artists of the classic modern age. By using materials like glitter, the work is undoubtedly girlish and playful, but upon reflection a serious undertone is revealed. Integrated amongst the portraits, are pictures of stars forming constellations. Out of these, the signs of the zodiac arise. Taking on a character of their own, they subtly fit in with the other works. The artist has also made a special reference to dogs, they appear on flax walls and brans, as well as private photos. In keeping with the portrait theme, the hang is reminiscent of the classical portrait studios of the 18th century. The artist’s purpose is to take away the limits from the idea of the conventional portrait by showing a certain irony to the observer through her point of view. Read on...press release [german] Read on...press release [english]

White Cube, London Gary Hume : Cave Paintings ‘When you create a picture you are finding something. You work with a fluid material which then sets, capturing the very memory of that liquidity. Although initially you would not think it, stone and lead behave in the same way as paint does, it’s simply a matter of time or pressure.’ Gary Hume White Cube is pleased to present a new series of works by British artist Gary Hume. Recalling the Madonna and Child of Renaissance and Baroque traditions and using marble as his medium, Hume has fused subject and material to create opulent ‘paintings’ whose hard, bejewelled surface has replaced the slick glossy plane of previous works. Entitled Cave Paintings, these seven marble tableaux use a variety of different stones set against each other in collaged sections that appear like tectonic plates. These are held together by a lead tracery that provides both the edge to the expanses of colour as well as a kind of automatic drawing, traced by the natural faults and veins inherent in the stone itself. Employing a technique traditionally used to carve epitaphs into gravestones, Hume uses the lead tracery in these works in much the same way that his etched lines delineated the slick swathes of colour in his high gloss aluminium paintings. Read on...White Cube, London

Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles Jill Greenberg : End Times "End Times" combines beautiful, poignant imagery, impeccably executed, with both political and personal relevance. Greenberg’s subject is taboo: children in pain. She utilizes this uncomfortable image as a way to break through to the pop mainstream and participate in a growing national dialogue. Jill Greenberg's images are sharp and saturated, stunning and quirky; her work is soaked with realism and imagination. "Nothing is more pure than the anguish of a child. Pictures of children crying capture raw emotion: sputtering rage and profound loss. In many ways we’ve become desensitized to disturbing images. But the honesty of a child’s feelings is undeniable and it draws you to the photograph. Perhaps because kids experience the kind of powerful emotions that we, as adults, have suppressed in ourselves." Read on...Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles

David Risley Gallery, London Boo Ritson : CAST After studying sculpture at the Royal College of Art, Ritson has had a desire to paint, though not necessarily to make paintings. This has manifested itself in painted objects, with the applied paint enclosing the object, like a skin, recasting it as an image of itself. Her new works take this progression further, enveloping a person's head in paint. Household paint is applied quickly and gesturally to the sitter's head, hair and clothes, covering them in a portrait of an imagined character. These are recorded as large colour photographic portraits, though they exist somewhere between painting, photography, sculpture and performance. These seemingly simple images are layered with complexities. Who is the portrait of, the sitter or the painted character? The armature of the sitter's face gives the characters credibility beyond the painted surface. Read on...David Risley Gallery, London

KRAVETS | WEHBY, New York Aya Uekawa : Heavenly Terrace Common Park: Hunting for Happiness Contemplative women search for the unattainable in the paintings of Aya Uekawa. Ominous branches creep upon one woman as she gazes longingly towards the imperceptible ground. Aya often positions a city girl persona in a serene setting drawing attention to the inner turmoil beneath sweet appearances. Aya is an exquisite draughtswoman and painter with a style reminiscent of Renaissance master drawings and Medieval altarpieces. Subtly peculiar facial expressions and exuberantly braided hairstyles interweave secret meanings that are unique and breathtaking in detail. Eyes and lips are distorted in a manner that evokes as many emotions as ethnicities. Her work is a balance between not wanting to completely abandon her traditional upbringing in suburban Tokyo and integrating her new Western identity. Read on...KRAVETS | WEHBY, New York

Hauser & Wirth, Zürich RONI HORN : Portrait of an Image Her current exhibition Roni Horn, Portrait of an Image is the first major solo exhibition of her work in the Zurich gallery. At the centre is one of her most recent works - Portrait of an Image (with Isabelle Huppert) – a series of a hundred photographic portraits of French actress Isabelle Huppert, whose face reflects a wide variety of emotions. Horn photographed the actress in twenty sequences of five photos each. In each sequence, Huppert briefly slips into one of her film characters so that her face expresses personalities that do not exist in reality but only in the film. Roni Horn’s photographs show studies of physiognomy in the finest variations in which the individual is always a plurality. The basic attitude that permits access to Roni Horn’s work is her idea of an encyclopedia of identity. Central to her series and pairs are the notions of diversity as the basis of identity, the capability of transformation and the impossibility of a permanently defined identity. Read on...Hauser & Wirth, Zürich