XAVIER ROBLES DE MEDINA – FAYA LOBI

Posted on 2020-02-03

Faya Lobi means fiery love, or love of fire.

In Suriname, it is the Sranan given name for its national flower, the Ixori coccinea , a flowering plant of South-Indian, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan origins. Other names it is known by are jungle geranium, flame of the woods, or jungle flame. The faya lobi grows abundantly in Suriname, producing flowers all year, as it does in South Asia. In Suriname, faya lobi became a symbol for love, long lasting and ardent passion.
There is a fiery love that burns in the deep heart of the South American jungles. This fire is different from the fires that have burned down and deforested the Amazon, it exists intrinsically, and is passed down to those born in the lineage of resistance. In the northeast Amazon basin, a fiery love welcomed the Ndyuka, now descendants of marooned slaves who for four centuries continuously build resistance and sanctuaries.

Opposite – Untitled (Translation B&G) I, 2019

Exhibition runs through to March 21st, 2020

Praz-Delavallade
5 rue des Haudriettes
75003 Paris

www.praz-delavallade.com

  

JAKI IRVINE – ACK RO’

Posted on 2020-01-27

Ack Ro’ contains an ambitious new 13-channel video piece, screened on monitors throughout the gallery space. They play an evocative, melodic but haunting composition: Louise Phelan’s mournful vocals blend over flute, piano and percussive elements from musicians Joe O’Farrell, Izumi Kimura and Sarah Grimes. Much like the soft layering of the track, the videos overlay images of a vibrating cymbal, Phelan’s singing mouth, black and white piano keys coming in and out of focus, all while the curvilinear forms of pink neon hover in the middle-distance. These three synced audio-visual works are accompanied by nine further screens playing short fragments of film shot in Dublin and Mexico City, each with its own ‘wild’ soundtrack of composed elements and ambient sound, adding an unpredictable element to the playback of the footage.

Opposite – Installation view

Exhibition runs through to February 29th, 2020

Kerlin Gallery
Anne’s Lane
South Anne Street
Dublin 2 Dublin
Ireland

www.kerlingallery.com

  

ROSE WYLIE – LET IT SETTLE

Posted on 2020-01-27

For her work, Wylie draws from cultural arenas including film, fashion photography, literature, mythology, history, news reports, and sports, making colorful and exuberant compositions that are uniquely recognizable. The artist works primarily from memory, resulting in paintings and drawings that are replete with associative afterimages that remain only loosely tethered to their original referents, but tightly connected to the memories as they have developed over time.

As Russell Tovey writes in the catalogue accompanying Let it Settle, “Borrowing threads from observation and popular culture, Rose amalgamates scenes for a carnival of creatures to play in, every piece expanding across the wall like a woven tapestry, continuing beyond sight like the Bayeux itself, as tour de force from an inspired dramaturge. The works hum with life as constant moving scenes of action … Rose directs us to notice what she wants us to notice, creating a dialogue between her players, an actual script, written across the works.”

Opposite – Glamour Girl Stereotype, Shades and Lashes, 2019

Exhibition runs through to April 30th, 2020

David Zwirner
80 Queen’s Road Central 5/F – 6/F
H Queen’s
Hong Kong

www.davidzwirner.com

  

ALEX ISRAEL – ALWAYS ON MY MIND

Posted on 2020-01-27

A native of Los Angeles, Israel mines the cultural mythos of his hometown with polished optimism and calculated cool, melding nostalgic feelings with lucid perceptions of California living and the American Dream.

Israel has cultivated a close partnership with Warner Bros. Studios, beginning in 2010 when he rented Hollywood props from the studio’s warehouses and exhibited them as readymade sculptures. He has also collaborated with the studio’s scenic painting department on numerous large-scale series, including his dreamy, pastel-tinted Sky Backdrops, architecturally inspired Flats, and slick, vibrant Waves. The film industry has continued to play a central role in Israel’s work; in 2017, he made his directorial debut with SPF-18, a feature-length teen rom-com that pays tribute to classic surf movies.

Opposite – Self-Portrait (Wheel of Fortune), 2017

Exhibition runs through to March 14th, 2020

Gagosian
20 Grosvenor Hill
W1K 3QD
London

gagosian.com

  

ELINE MUGAAS – NØDVENDIGHETEN AV LEDDSETNINGER

Posted on 2020-01-20

Eline Mugaas collects. She collects her own and others’ pictures, or snippets of pictures in pictures, of the arms that carry, of the box that closes around things, the hands that embrace. A rotating gesture is central in this exhibition which includes the installation she made for the Lorck
Schive Art Prize at the Trondheim Art Museum in 2019. In a film from Brancusi’s studio, a woman dances on a low pedestal, twisting her body as she moves her arm over her head. The gesture reminded Mugaas of elements from art history, from the Caryatids, pillars shaped like women’s bodies carrying temples on their heads, or mourners from ancient jars that raise their arms over their heads to tear at their hair as an expression of grief, to the twisted female bodies in Matisse’s paintings. It also made her think of the movement when swinging an object up to your head in order to use the body’s vertical axis to carry the weight, or when lifting a child.

Opposite – Wheels on Wall, 2019

Exhibition runs through to March 8th, 2020

Galleri Riis
Arbins gate 7
NO-0253 Oslo
Norway

galleririis.com

  

ISABELLA DUCROT – SUBJECTS

Posted on 2020-01-20

In the five work groups, which are all very different from each other, ranging from landscapes and vases to teapots, one theme persists: presenting the same things, repeated many times. The old kitchen towels Fazzoletti are all decorated with circles, a kind of invocation as in mantras or prayers, the erotic images Erotici are black-and-white and the pots Vasi are reduced to simple geometric forms.

Opposite – Fazzoletto, 2007

Exhibition runs through to March 21st, 2020

Galerie Mezzanin
63, rue des Maraîchers
CH-1205 Geneva
Switzerland

galeriemezzanin.com