|
mai 36 galerie : PRINTED | IB 6621 - 30 Aug 2012 to 20 Oct 2012 Current Exhibition |
||||
|
Image � Michel P�rez El Pollo
courtesy mai 36 |
|||
|
||||
|
PRINTED Works by Josh Brand, Troy Brauntuch, Luke Fowler, Luigi Ghirri, Ion Grigorescu, Zoe Leonard, Eileen Quinlan Preview: Thursday, 30 August 2012, 5 to 8 p.m. Exhibition: 30 August – 20 October 2012 Hours: Tue-Fri, 11 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Sat, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The group exhibition PRINTED brings together the photographic works of three generations of American and European artists. What all of these have in common is a leaning toward abstract representation, which they achieve by means of the most diverse techniques. The consistently medium-sized and smaller formats enable the viewer to first make out large forms and structures, before being able to perceive anything concrete. Many of these works are generated as abstract images in the studio or darkroom, some even exclusively so. The Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri (1943-1992), internationally known at the latest since the 2011 Venice Biennale, looked upon his photographs as excerpts from a seen reality that graphically interprets his photographic representations of the known, conflating it at a single level and rendering it legible in a new way. Streets, houses, light, become landscape-depictions of civilization. Romanian artist Ion Grigorescu (born 1945), who lives and works in Bucharest, processes his photographic works in a laboratory, creating strong forms that point up a connection between, and dependence on, impoverished but lively social, rural and urban structures. Seen together, the works of these two artists act as ideal representatives of their western, respectively eastern European origins, Italy and Romania. New York photographer Troy Brauntuch (born 1954) belongs to the middle generation. His works contain drama and political reference hidden, so to speak, between high-contrast formations of the visible. The works of Zoe Leonard (born 1961 in Liberty, New York) reflect her own turbulent life through her choice of figurative motifs, outdoor shots cloaking stories that form a significant invisible second level. The young generation is represented by Josh Brand (born 1980), who lives in Brooklyn, New York, Eileen Quinlan (born 1972), who also lives in Brooklyn, and the Scottish artist Luke Fowler (born 1978), who lives and works in Glasgow. Fowler’s filmic approach is mirrored in the presentation of the photographs in the exhibition: in each case two takes placed side by side, their interaction heightened by a poetic title. Eileen Quinlan produces her works exclusively in the laboratory. She uses various developing techniques and a wide variety of materials, such as, for example, mirrors, to create abstract phenomena and impressions of space. Josh Brand’s works recall those of older traditions, such as the photogram, albeit with freer gestural features. He also combines different materials with photographic material, producing collages which he places in a contemporary context. Strangely enough, the popularity of art photography over the past two decades, including the electronic possibilities of image manipulation, has led to such a familiarization with the medium that its potential for experimentation and social commitment has faded into the background, with just a few exceptions. The exhibition PRINTED would therefore like to draw attention once again to the abstract possibilities of photography. Especially the smaller formats are intended to inspire our eye to see photography again from its figurative side. Except for the works of Brauntuch and Leonard, the photographs in the exhibition have all been produced using purely analogue processes. For the young generation in particular, the aspect of the process is the starting point for producing images based on the interaction of paper, chemical processes and captured light. Through this they connect up once again to the origins of photography . (Text: Axel Jablonski) For visual materials please contact ( [email protected] ) IB6621 RAUL CORDERO FLAVIO GARCIANDÍA MICHEL PÉREZ EL POLLO September 15 through October 20, 2012 Opening: Friday, September 14, 6 - 8 p.m The term “tropical depression” is used in meteorology to describe weather conditions in tropical regions that entail storms and lightning and a constantly cloudy sky. Of course the term also has a psychological significance. IB 6621 makes reference to a flight from Madrid to Havana, thus creating a connection between Cuba, the Old World and the exhibition. What is more, the theme of the 11th Havana Biennial in 2012 was the praxis of artistic production and the idea of social reality. So expectations, prejudices and the survey of the visible are also aspects dealt with by the three artists in this exhibition. Flavio Garciandía (born 1954 in Caibarien, Cuba) has derived, with a certain irony, the term “New Tropical Abstraction” from “Tropical Depression”. Garciandía is regarded as one of the fathers of concept art in Central and South American and has been represented in many important exhibitions on that theme. He sees Cuba’s culture as a fusion of the most diverse influences and reference systems. Identity is multifaceted and usually determined by a gaze from outside. From this viewpoint, Garciandía’s works masterfully amalgamate elements from almost all modern art styles, focusing in this post-modern manner particularly on the flexible potential of painting. A conceptual approach is also evident in the paintings by Raúl Cordero (born 1971 in Havana, Cuba). In our day, film has become more important than individual “static” documents, being both an omnipresent phenomenon of our current perception and historically significant for example particularly in the filmic documents of the different recent revolutions. In Cordero’s work, therefore, filmic sequences gel into blurred stills overlaid by signs and ciphers, and sometimes even by real objects (in one case spectacles, for example) or an apparently alien text. This artist’s interest in when exactly a work begins and which processes and ideas it progresses through on its way to being an artwork, also finds expression in the markings, layers and references to other media and foreign artworks which graphically extend and complete the frame of reference of his works. Michel Pérez El Pollo (born 1981 in Manzanillo, Cuba) is the youngest of the three artists in the exhibition IB 6621 . Although his paintings may seem childlike and naive, his concern is to avoid faithful accuracy in favor of a universal expression. His models are figures and shapes made of modeling clay, which he greatly enlarges and exaggerates when painting them. Pérez is more interested in the fundamental constellations of human existence and interaction than in any popular ubiquitous and increasingly hollow social criticism. All three artists in this exhibition subvert certain current art trends, including the potentially profitable evocations of crisis in a “Pintura Tropical”. Their painting highlights the art of self-verification and contemporaneity in turbulent times and above and beyond political systems. (Text: Axel Jablonski) |
||||
|
||||
re-title.com
International contemporary art
SIGN UP FOR NEWSLETTERS
SIGN UP for ARTIST MEMBERSHIP
SIGN UP for GALLERY MEMBERSHIP
Click on the map to search the directory