RONI HORN – RECENT WORK

Posted on 2011-07-25

The exhibition features important new sculpture, photography and works on paper. Through these media, Horn cultivates a complex relationship between identity, location and the viewer’s perception Horn has made a new sculpture.

Horn has made a new sculpture for the north gallery. Consisting of a group of six to ten ethereal yet weighty pieces, this work is the first of Horn’s multi-part sculptures to be shown in the UK.

In the south gallery, Horn has created part two of a key work in her oeuvre: ‘You are the Weather’ (1994 – 1996). The new work, ‘You are the Weather, Part 2’, follows the same form as ‘You are the Weather’ and features the same model, 15 years later. The work consists of 100 photographs of a woman, situated in the hot springs and pools in Iceland. In each image, the woman’s facial expressions change with the changes in the weather conditions around her. As described by Horn in regards to ‘You are the Weather’, ‘The way this work is shot and installed, the viewer is voyeurised by the view. You are surrounded by a woman who is staring at you’.

In connection with ‘You are the Weather, Part 2’, Horn will publish ‘Haraldsdóttir, Part Two’. This publication is the 10th volume of ‘To Place’ – an ongoing series of artist’s books. It is related to ‘Haraldsdóttir’, which was first published in 1996, and presents in the work all the photographs from ‘You Are the Weather, Part 2’.

Opposite – You are the Weather, Part 2 (detail), 2010–2011

Exhibition runs from September 9th to October 22nd, 2011

Hauser & Wirth
23 Savile Row
London
W1S 2ET

www.hauserwirth.com

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CARLO MOLLINO – MANIERA MODERNA

Posted on 2011-07-25

The exhibition’s selection of works reflects the versatility of Carlo Mollino’s oeuvre: on view are his drawings and architectural plans, furniture and furnishings, Mollino’s race car “Bisiluro”, his photomontages, Polaroids of female nudes, his essays on architecture, photography and downhill skiing, as well as other archival material. A photographical essay by Armin Linke created for the exhibition provides an overview of Mollino’sconstructions and their state of preservation.
Mollino’s buildings were long handled with negligence. It is significant that in 1960 the Turin city council voted to demolish the Società Ippica Torinese, which had only been completed in 1940. Although Carlo Mollino has gained increasing attention in recent years, he is still not fully recognized as an architect. In contrast, his furniture has long been on great demand by collectors: in 2005 one of his tables was sold at auction for 3.8
million dollars. Contemporary artists, such as Karole Armitage and David Salle, Nairy Baghramian, Steven Claydon, Armin Linke, Mai-Thu Perret, Heidi Specker and Simon Starling, refer explicitly in their work to Carlo Mollino.

Opposite – Teatro Regio, 1965-73

Exhibition runs from September 16th to January 8th, 2012

Haus der Kunst
Prinzregentenstraße 1
80538
München
Germany

www.hausderkunst.de

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PETER PERI – WE, THE CHILDREN OF THE 20TH CENTURY

Posted on 2011-07-18

His work has been described, in the writings about him, as being in a dialogue with the now extinguished utopian ideals, or grand value systems, of early modernism, and the writers who have stated this are, of course, all correct in their description. It’s been noted that Peri’s grandfather was an early Constructivist and in a sense Constructivism is Peri’s inheritance fortune – the art historical equivalent of a decayed noble estate, amongst whose treasures Peri, the young heir, may wander, enjoying whatever uses or strange squanders that the rights of ownership allow him.

There is a vast, potent, teeming art historical energy about early modernism; it fascinates artists, and enthralls critics and art institutions. Modernism’s original formations suggested political utopianism, geometric spirituality, avant gardism and artistic heroism, cosmological searching, the coded systems of spiritualist and occultist empowerment, abstract and formalist absolutism, and ideals of social and scientific progressiveness. Peri’s appropriations of these (mostly ruined) modernist ideals could be just a cerebral, art historical exercise, or else an opportunity for playfully ironic, retro gags. But his geometrical modernist forms are better than either; propelled forth from a mostly poetic logic (as indicated in the painting titles), he creates the visual equivalences of intense, authoritative, summary moods. Peri’s is a cosmology of various sacred geometries – there are many sacred geometries around to choose from – which he allows to glisten in the brightness of a silvery honouring, before revealing something profane; a foul night time of the dissolute, created from the distressed grunge of painted and overpainted effacement.

Opposite – I Live in a Paradise of Hellish Blue Balls, 2011

Exhibition runs through to July 30th, 2011

Almine Rech Gallery
19 Rue Saintonge
F75003
Paris

www.alminerech.com

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JAKE & DINOS CHAPMAN: JAKE OR DINOS CHAPMAN

Posted on 2011-07-18

For the past year, Jake and Dinos have been working in separate studios to produce a series of works in isolation from each other. Only in the staging of this show will each become aware of what the other has done. Unlike Gilbert & George, for whom Jake and Dinos worked at times as studio assistants, their practice is not one of ‘singular duality’. They have always discussed, debated, argued and on occasion fought over creative and cultural ideas, but in this exhibition they will scrutinise and confront the whole idea of creative collaboration.

Jake and Dinos Chapman began their artistic collaboration after graduating from the Royal College of Art in London in 1990 when they created We are Artists. Since this self-defining anti-aesthetic manifesto was first stencilled onto a mud-splattered wall at the ICA, London in 1992 they have developed their own shared discourse as ‘sore-eyed scopophiliac oxymorons’ with, as they put it at the time, ‘a benevolent contingency of conceits’.

Over the last twenty years their practice has seen them make iconoclastic sculpture, paintings, prints and installations that examine, with searing wit and energy, contemporary politics, religion and morality. In the essay accompanying their survey show at Tate Liverpool in 2006, Christoph Grunenberg described the work as existing between that which repulses and that which attracts the viewer. Furthermore, he said that what becomes really disturbing is “the underlying psychological meanings – the attacks on the whole body, the blurring of gender lines, the revulsions of the abject, the insinuations of sadism and moral offences. While their sculptures, paintings and prints function perfectly on a visceral level without theoretical superstructure, particular figures, motifs and images can always be traced to specific textual and visual references.”

Exhibition runs through to September 17th, 2011

White Cube
48 Hoxton Square
London
N1 6PB

www.whitecube.com

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OTHERWORLDLY: OPTICAL DELUSIONS AND SMALL REALITIES

Posted on 2011-07-18

The exhibition Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities, which features 27 other artists, illuminates the renaissance of interest among artists worldwide in constructing small-scale, hand built depictions of artificial environments and alternative realities, either as sculpture or as subjects for photography and video. These are worlds of “magic realism” conceived and realized through intense engagement with materials, attention to detail, and concern for meaningful content.

Opposite – Mat Collishaw, The Garden of Earthly Delights, 2009

Exhibition runs through to September 18th, 2011

The Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle
New York
NY
10019

www.madmuseum.org

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IMPRESSIONS FROM SOUTH AFRICA, 1965 TO NOW

Posted on 2011-07-11

During the oppressive years of apartheid rule in South Africa, not all artists had access to the same opportunities. But far from quashing creativity, these limited options gave rise to a host of alternatives, including studios, print workshops, art centers, schools, publications, and theaters open to all races; underground poster workshops and collectives; and commercial galleries that supported the work of black artists, that made the art world a progressive environment for social change. Printmaking, with its flexible formats, portability, relative affordability, and collaborative environment, was a catalyst in the exchange of ideas and the articulation of political resistance.

Drawn entirely from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now features nearly 80, posters, books, and wall stencils created over the last five decades that demonstrate the exceptional reach, range, and impact of printmaking during and after a period of enormous political upheaval.

Opposite – Conrad Botes. Secret Language II, 2005

Exhibition runs through to August 29th, 2011

Moma
11 West 53 Street
New York
NY
10019
USA

www.moma.org

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