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gb agency: Mark Geffriaud : If one were only an Indian | CROY NIELSEN - 17 Jan 2009 to 7 Mar 2009 Current Exhibition |
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Mark Geffriaud : If one were only an Indian
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Mark Geffriaud : If one were only an Indian Opening January 17th, 4 - 9 pm Exhibition dates : January 17th - March 7th, 2009 Within an eclectic body of work, one can underline Mark Geffriaud�s (b. 1977, lives and works in Paris) interest for monuments dedicated to non events. Questions of disappearance and emptiness appear regularly in his work, which plays repeatedly with key elements such as books or light. Focusing on images and forms� apparition (circulation) and disappearance (oblivion), Mark Geffriaud�s works draw a fragmented archaeology in which misunderstanding as a cognitive process plays a great part. Free associations, formal comparisons and false fictions allow the artist to share a kind of subtle and shifted perception of the world. From missing data in the different forms of the series Renseignements G�n�raux (2006-2008) - named after the French secret service, literally meaning �global information�, that the artist has developed around an archival process of images from various sources organized on formal and often loose associations meant to back up an absent text dedicated to a book which is never intended to be finished or published - to the realization of a (non-)monument dedicated to the memory of a disappeared city (Pride, 2007) or to the materialization of an imaginary road in the US desert (Milky Ways, 2007), Mark Geffriaud�s works suggest an absence and tends to create a fragmentary universe in which the viewer is invited to project his own representations and personal narratives. Roche, 2008, consists for instance on a slide projection of blue, red and orange monochromes onto a copy of the polyphonic novel Compact by Maurice Roche, in which each voice is written in a different colour, precisely erasing or intensifying some parts of the book. However, if the use of books or pages torn from books is recurrent in his practice, this is not so much to highlight specific references but rather to question the physical qualities that books as objects and sources of knowledge and transmission represent. Indeed, in the series Mires, 2008, pages of books from various origins are framed between transparent plates of Plexiglas allowing the viewer to look at the recto and at the verso of each page in the same time. A single glimpse thus not only allows for example to discover Witold Gombrowicz with his dog on one side or playing chess on the other but also to look at Gombrowicz playing chess with his dog due to the transparency of the paper. This is also the case in the series Herbarium in which the light of slide projectors (moving according to the slide shows) goes through the holes in the wall behind framed book pages revealing different parts of them on the other side. Creating visual and semantic shortcuts, these works suggest that accidents and arbitrary decisions can be productive and create knowledge. This switch from arbitrary gestures to scientific and rational decisions is particularly obvious in the pieces Greetings from an easy world, 2007 in which a diagram thoroughly conceived by an origamist allows the reproduction of the same paper ball crushed by the artist or in Alpabeth, 2007, a wallpaper in which the letters of all the alphabets in use on earth today are mixed up together and reclassified according to their shape, designing in this way an evolving wallpaper pattern. The installation Polka Dot exhibited in the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in 2008 is in this sense also quite representative of Geffriaud�s artistic practice. Projected from a slide projector animated by a circular movement, the first photographic image ever taken of the sun briefly lights various posters (pages from magazines, photographs, etc) hung at different heights on the walls of an almost totally dark room. At the end of each rotation, the light remains for a while during which it is reflected by a mirror onto the centre pages of a book standing upright on a shelf. Tiny holes in the pages let the light go through the other side, engaging the photos in a back to back conversation. One can only slowly discover each image that is part of the installation and in a second time try to connect them to build up a possible and ever to be sought and repeated meaning or narrative. A low-tech video installation � a fixed image animates other fixed images � or a book in the scale of a room, Polka Dot questions the way we look at things with notions of theatricality, (deceived) entertainment and short-term memory. The light piece Present Perfect, 2007, is remarkable in that sense. By intervening on the lighting of the exhibition space to illuminate empty white walls, Mark Geffriaud suggests the location of works hung in the past and their current absence but also points out the possible location of the works to come. He creates this way a mental picture between remembrance and projection which, through an invisible electronic device, flickers almost imperceptibly during the blink of an eye. Repeated every 20 or 50 seconds, this disturbance of vision is based on the pace of the putamen, a central part of the brain linked to temporary memory and by extension to our perception of immediate present. Endlessly reiterated, this interruption of the luminous flux appears as the sign of a perfect loop of the present time or of the awareness that we have of it. Present Perfect or the allegory of our times. Yoann Gourmel Mark Geffriaud Born in 1977 in Vitry sur Seine. Lives and works in Paris. Solo exhibitions 2009 Si l'on pouvait �tre un Peau-Rouge, gb agency, Paris 2008 Polka Dot, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, cur. Daria de Beauvais Group exhibitions 2009 Dans la nuit nous tournons, Mus�e D�partemental, Chateau de Rochechouart, Rochechouart Paris/Berlin, gb agency at Croy Nielsen, Berlin Paper Exhibition, Artists Space, New York, cur. Raimundas Malasauskas 2008 Notorious, Frac �le-de-France, le Plateau, Paris, cur. Xavier Franceschi Les Feuilles, Super et Palais de Tokyo, Paris, cur. Elodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel Crisi. Contra les aparences, angels, Barcelona Le Spectrarium, Pavillon Suisse, Cit� Internationale, Paris, cur. Samuel Dubosson, M�lodie Mousset & Tatiana Rihs Effondrement de l�onde de probabilit� (Stretch & Narrow), Zoo Gallery, Nantes, cur. Patrice Joly & Aude Launay Palimpseste, galerie Xippas, Paris L'anomalie d'Ararat, IrmaVepLab, Ch�tillon sur Marne, cur. Elodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel Ce qui revient, galerie ACDC, Brest, cur. Fran�ois Aubard Faces, gb agency, Paris La Marge d'Erreur, Centre d'art la Synagogue de Delme, cur. Le Bureau 220 jours, gb agency, Paris, cur. Elodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel: 186 000 fins par seconde Katamari ...except� peut-�tre une constellation 2007 Le Jardin de Cyrus, EMBA Manet, Gennevilliers, cur. Yoann Gourmel Speed Dating 2, Zoo Galerie, Nantes, cur. Patrice Joly & Aude Launay Crosswords, Analix Forever, Gen�ve, cur. Michele Robecchi 220 jours, gb agency, Paris, cur. Elodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel: Rien n'aura eu lieu que le lieu... All we ever see of stars are their old photographs Prologue 00's, Lyon contemporary art biennial, Lyon, cur. Pierre Joseph The Tent Show, Centre d'art contemporain Nikolaj, Copenhagen The Man who shot Liberty Valance, La Galerie Ext�rieure, tour in the USA, artist and curator in collaboration with G�raldine Longueville 2006 Please Wait, Immanence, Paris Nuit Blanche 06, Paris, cur. G�raldine Longueville ...with bizarre rooms in whimsical shapes (the Library), cur. Elodie Royer & Yoann Gourmel, gb agency at Villa Warsaw, Warsaw La Galerie Ext�rieure n�3, Paris, cur. G�raldine Longueville Gem�tlich-kite, M�nzstrasse 10, Berlin Le Spectre des Armatures, Glassbox, Paris, cur. Elodie Royer, Mathilde Villeneuve & Yoann Gourmel 2005 Sans Titre, Galerie Vasistas, Montpellier Autant de Math�matiques que de Petites Filles, Galerie Aperto, Montpellier, cur. Patrick Perry Is/Sud, Galerie ESCA, N�mes 2004 Royal Wedding, MAMCO, Gen�ve, cur. Ecole du Magasin 2002 L'�cole Temporaire, in Import/Export, Villa-Arson, Nice, cur. Pierre Joseph Publications 2008 Art 21, # 17, Portfolio, Tout le reste, text by Yoann Gourmel, may - june. Art 21, # 17, 220 jours, text by R�mi Parcollet, may - june. Les Inrockuptibles, n�643, 220 jours de f�te, text by Judica�l Lavrador, march 25 - 31. Flash Art, # 258, text by Joanna Fiduccia, january - february. 2007 00's, L'histoire d'une d�cennie qui n'est encore nomm�e, Lyon Biennial, catalogue, Les Presses du R�el, Dijon. CROY NIELSEN Hedemannstr. 14, D�10969 On the occasion of the Berlin-Paris exchange project, we are pleased to present the works by NINA BEIER AND MARIE LUND, JUDITH HOPF, and ROMAN SCHRAMM at gb agency in Paris. Dealing with different subjects in a wide variety of medias, the object plays a specific role in each of their practices. In Schramm�s photographs it is staged in the style of advertisement shots and serves the function of personification, reference and metaphor. In Beier and Lund�s practice it is charged with symbolic value denoting a fascination with shared history and group dynamics, whereas Hopf often makes use of displaced objects in her critical investigations of widespread social conventions. NINA BEIER AND MARIE LUND (b. 1975/1976 in DK, live and work in London and Berlin) have been working collaboratively since 2003 and their work reveal a subtle awareness and critique of the social and cultural systems of representation. I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her is the title of a work whose existence depends on the presence of another work of art. It consists of a carpet that can be placed in front of any art piece hanging on the wall, and is rolled up to what is described as the standard viewing distance of a painting or another image (two times the diagonal). The title is a sentence from F. Scott Fitzgerald�s �The Great Gatsby�, and reflects Beier and Lund�s curiosity about the nature of human relations � here combined with a humorously play with the definitions and boundaries of an art work. The Points is an ongoing series of collages cut out from the covers of books on social theory. The designed symbols are mounted in Plexiglas frames matching the different sizes of the books, and they are left isolated to reveal a different signification. JUDITH HOPF (b. 1969, lives in Berlin) deals with stories and aesthetics associated with the sphere of everyday culture, using forms of expression as performance, video, sculpture, and works on paper. Bambus (�Bamboo�, 2006/2009) is composed by simple every day drinking glasses, piled with small paper leaves between them. Reaching from the floor to the ceiling the sculpture seems to fit perfect into the space, but at the same time it occupies it in an awkward and surrealistic way. The simple materials (glasses and paper) make it seem like a prop, temporarily installed like a displaced cartoon figure. In all its beauty it creates a moment of irritation, due to its seemingly shaky construction. The state of not knowing whether the bamboo will or won�t fall, and what other possibilities could arise serves as an example for Hopf�s manner of working. Her works point the viewer in certain directions but without being prescriptive. Instead, there is a marked critical and productive awareness of uniformities propagated within society: Hopf questions their ostensible necessity and transforms them into alternative opinions. The photographs by ROMAN SCHRAMM (b. 1979, lives in Berlin) are centred on changing ideas of male identity and combine the traditional genres of portrait and still life with elements from advertisement shots. Schramm exaggerates and partially subverts commercial strategies when he captures the detail of a powerful boat motor as if it was a desirable luxury good. The title, Bariton- Element Nanni Diesel (2007), refers to what the chief editor of the American Esquire (the first lifestyle magazine for men in, published in 1933) dubbed �baritone elements�: in order to secure its status a an unquestionably heterosexual magazine, Ernest Hemingway was invited to write about hunting and fishing, for example. Thomas as Arrow Collar Man alludes to the �Arrow Collar Man�: an advertising icon promoting Arrow brand detachable shirt collars from around 1907. He represented the ideal American man, and by 1920 received more than seventeen thousands love letters a week � even though he was the fictive invention of an American magazine illustrator. Through re-enactments Schramm reflects on the gap between reality and fiction prevailing advertisement - today in the shape of perfection generated by computer manipulation. |
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