studio1.4 presents
SUSAK EXPO[RT]
2 1 0 2 Galerija Fritzy Mali Lošinj
TRANSLATION
CHANGE MUTATION
23 to 29 April
studio1.4 SUSAK EXPO[RT] 2012 23 to 29 April
T RANSLAT ION CHANGE MUTAT ION Anna-Maria Bogner Robin Seir
Cedric Christie Christina Boula
Daniel Devlin Kate Lyddon
Hermann Fink
Sarah Rechberger Herzog Dellafiore Janko Matic
Peter Seewasser
John Stephens
Keran James
Petra Varl
www.susakpress.com
Yen Sik Kim
The Shape of Things to Come Working within a hegemony dominated predominantly by the promulgation of a paradigm of what was normally seen as singular, unique, original, inspirational, patriarchal art practice we come to understand, the transformation on the viewer, by gazing upon the artefact is indissolubly linked in the originating cause and effect product. Heidegger stated in his essay, The Origin of the Work of Art.: ‘It is the work that first lets the artist emerge as a master of his (sic) art.’ If we take this perspective are we to understand therefore the originator, progenitor, producer framed as co-author is simply the body who constructs, the material realiser if you will, to whom the ultimate conceptual tag of originality and responsibility is attributed. Does it matter? Does it matter? The multiple inflection of this question can simultaneously problematize and ironize the absolutes, the fixities of any construction or indeed any deconstruction which might effect a dislocation. Indeed, a dislocation so profound as to render any text, whether visual or literary redundant in an implosion of post-modernity. In this implosion that is postmodernity, that was post-modernity. …. Where am I going? Indeed where am I? Where have I been? Let’s start again. Let’s start from 16 September 1977 on Queen’s Ride, (South West London). Where are you Bolan? Let’s start on 11 January 1994 on 193 Grove Road, London, E17 9BZ. OK read on! Pay attention! In 1993 Rachel Whiteread cast her iconic house in concrete. Suddenly a familiar internal space was transformed; the personal and private was cast in a white, inert, brutal material and exposed. The innermost, intimate spaces were laid bare, open to the elements. Ironically it had none of the used second hand qualities associated with the familiar brick constructions and being cast from the last in a line of houses that had been demolished, stood like a monolith prompting interpretation and debate regarding memory loss and personal history.
Judging by the negative reaction Whiteread’s work elicited one imagines the public is resistant to change. Yet change is something that requires our constant attention (sic). By looking away and ceasing to attend, the workings of chemistry and biology will affect a gradual, imperceptible transformation; pigment fades, patinas build, varnish cracks, works of art age. Anarchic preoccupations are adopted by commerce and subsumed into the morass of consumerism rendering them harmless; punk couture mutates into a fashion statement, its political aggression emasculated on the cat walk. Is this what Situationists called the democratisation of art; is this the ultimate reunification of high and popular culture. Does this ‘Recuparation’ effect change? Or does the establishment simply assimilate the radical, tame them and translate into diluted market commodities thus rendering them safe? Yet what pre-occupies is what slips through, what falls between the floorboards of life? What grows, what destroys, what intervenes, what feedback, noise entropy adds or detracts to the experience of creativity and interpretation? What part of ourselves should we preserve and when we abandon ourselves to the elements and no longer have control, what do we become? Sally Mann’s ethereal photographs of bodies left to decompose naturally on The Body Farm, demystify the processes of decay but simultaneously prompts questions regarding what we are and whether our systems of belief, philosophy, religion are simply a superfluous addendum to the business of biological transformation and decay. Although her work still exhibits the simple strangeness characteristic in these affecting portraits we can no longer seek refuge in form as it implodes metaphorically and literally. Interstices, borders, gaps, verges, the slightest shift transforms meaning blurring the boundaries of interpretation. If context is 99% of meaning then possibilities for disruption are endless. An artist can (attempt to) dictate what is seen and how it should be viewed, John Baldessari, for example explores
the narrative potential of images and the associative power of language within the specific boundaries of the work of art. Yet words and images are purely signals and artists cannot predict the links, net and connections which will be made in the sub conscious of the viewer. Making art is in some ways translating from one context to another changing the meaning. Barbara Kruger experiments with the idea of gender shift, how masculine and feminine definitions are unstable terms or identities easily exchanged. Throughout her works Kruger makes the viewer re-assess, review and reevaluate the image, the text, the artist the response and aspects of culture, belief, expectation which we bring to interpretation and the translation of ideas from the art work to our beliefs. Mathematician Norbert Wiener developed the concept of cybernetics and thus began the exploration of ‘noise elements extraneous to a message which affect its transmission’. What we see here is how disorganisational elements or randomness become the negative of information. During the process of translation, meaning inevitably and inexorably changes; the same words have different connotations in different languages. The translator might understand or interpret things differently bringing cultural belief systems to a text which didn’t exist in the original. The text you are reading may be a translation or may even be the translation of the translation complete with noise elements extraneous to the original message and you probably didn’t notice a thing.
Fleur Axelle
Oblik stvari koje dolaze Radeći u hegemoniji kojom uglavnom dominira promulgacija paradigme nečega što se inače smatra posebnom, jedinstvenom, originalnom, nadahnjujućom praksom u patrijarhalnoj umjetnosti počinjemo shvatati da je preobražaj koji se odvija na gledaocu dok zuri u taj artefakt nerazdvojivo vezan u izvornom proizvodu uzroka i posljedice. Heidegger je rekao u svom eseju Porijeklo umjetničkog djela: „Djelo je ono što prvo dopušta umjetniku da se istakne kao gospodar svoje (sic) umjetnosti.“ Ako zauzmemo takav stav, treba li stoga da shvatimo da je stvaralac, predak, proizvođač ukalupljen u koautora tek tijelo koje izgrađuje, osloboditelj materijala ako baš želite, kojem se daje atribut krajnje konceptualne oznake originalnosti i odgovornosti. Da li je bitno? Da li je bitno? Višestruka fleksija ovog pitanja može istovremeno i problematizovati i očeličiti apsolutne konstrukcije, nepokretnosti bilo koje konstrukcije ili u stvari dekonstrukcije koja bi mogla imati uticaja na dislokaciju. Stvarno, dislokacija tako duboka da bilo koji tekst, bilo vizuelni ili literarni, učini redundantnim u jednoj imploziji post-modernosti. U ovoj imploziji koja je postmodernost, to je post-modernost. … Đe ja idem? U stvari, đe sam ja? Đe sam bio? Haj’mo ispočetka. Hajde da počnemo od 16. septembra 1977. u Ulici Queen’s Ride, (u jugozapadnom Londonu). Đe si, Bolan. Hajde da počnemo 11. januara 1994. na broju 193 u Ulici Grove Road, u Londonu, E17 9BZ. U redu, čitaj dalje! Pazi ovamo! Godine 1993. Rachel Whiteread salila je svoju poznatu betonsku kuću. Odjednom se poznati unutrašnji prostor preobrazio; lični i privatni bio je saliven u bijelom, nepokretnom, brutalnom materijalu i ogoljen. Oni najdublji, intimni prostori
ostavljeni su goli, otvoreni silama prirode. Ironično, ali nije imala ni jednu od korišćenih, polovnih kvaliteta koje se vezuju za poznate nam građevine od cigle, a time što je salivena od poslednje u nizu kuća koje su bile uništene, stajala je kao monolit, izazivajući tumačenja i rasprave glede gubitka pamćenja i lične historije. Sudeći po negativnim reakcijama koje je izmamilo djelo Whitereadove, javnost nije sklona promjenama. Ali, promjena je nešto što zahtijeva našu stalnu pažnju (sic). Odvraćajući pogled i prekidajući pažnju proizvodi hemije i biologije narušiće postepeni, neprimjetni preobražaj; pigment blijedi, patina se nakuplja, lak puca, umjetnička djela stare. Anarhične zaokupljenosti usvaja trgovina i podvodi ih u glib potrošačkog života čineći ih bezopasnim; pankerski način oblačenja mutira u modni izražaj, a njegova politička agresivnost omlitavi u manekenski hod. Je li to ono što su situacionisti nazivali demokratizacijom umjetnosti; je li to konačno objedinjavanje visoke i popularne kulture. Mijenja li se taj efekat „obnove“? Ili establišment samo izvrši asimilaciju radikalnih, ukroti ih i pretvori u razvodnjenu tržišnu robu čineći ih tako sigurnim? Ali, ono što zaokuplja jeste ono što se propusti, ono što padne kroz procjepe između dasaka koje život znače? Šta uvećava, šta uništava, šta se upliće, koji uzvraćaj, buku entropija dodaje ili oduzima iskustvu stvaralaštva i tumačenja? Koji dio nas samih bismo trebali da sačuvamo, a kad ostavimo sebe silama prirode i kad više nemamo kontrolu, šta tada postajemo? Eterične fotografije Sally Mann koje prikazuju fotografije tijela ostavljenih da se prirodno raspadnu na farmi tijela demistifikuju proces truljenja ali istovremeno izazivaju pitanja o tome šta smo mi to i da li su naši sistemi vjerovanja, filozofije, religije tek suvišni dodatak poslu biološkog preobražaja i truljenja. Iako njena djela još uvijek prikazuju prosto svojstvo neobičnosti, u tim izražajnim portretima više ne možemo tražiti utočište u formi, jer ona implodira i metaforično i bukvalno.
Rastojanja, ivice, procjepi, rubovi, najmanje pomjeranje transformiše značenje čineći granice interpretacije nejasnim. Ako kontekst čini 99% značenja onda su mogućnosti za poremećaj beskrajne. Umjetnik može (pokušati) diktirati ono što se vidi i kako da se gleda, John Baldessari, na primjer istražuje narativni potencijal slika i asocijativnu snagu jezika u okviru specifičnih granica umjetničkog djela. Ali, riječi i slike su tek signali i umjetnici ne mogu predvidjeti poveznice, mreže i veze koje će nastati u podsvijesti posmatrača. Stvaranje umjetnosti na neki način jeste prevođenje iz jednog konteksta u drugi, uz promjenu značenja. Barbara Kruger eksperimentiše sa idejom promjene pola, koliko su muške i ženske definicije nestabilni izrazi ili koliko lako se identiteti zamijene. Kroz sve svoje radove Krugerova tjera posmatrača da ponovno procjenjuje, razmatra i ponovno evaluira sliku, tekst, umjetnika, odgovor i aspekte kulture, vjerovanja, očekivanja koje unosimo u tumačenje i prevođenje ideja od umjetničkog djela do naših vjerovanja. Matematičar Norbert Wiener razvio je koncept kibernetike i tako je otpočelo istraživanje „elemenata poruci neuobičajenog šuma koji narušava njen prenos“. Ono što ovdje vidimo jeste kako neorganizovani elementi ili nasumičnosti postaju negativ informacije. Prilikom procesa prevođenja, značenje se neizbježno i neumoljivo mijenja; iste riječi imaju drugačije konotacije u različitim jezicima. Prevodilac bi mogao razumjeti ili protumačiti stvari drugačije unoseći kulturološke sisteme vjerovanja u tekst koji nije postojao u izvorniku. Tekst koji čitate možda je prevod, a možda je čak i prevod prevoda, sve sa elementima šuma stranim prvobitnoj poruci, a vi vjerovatno ništa niste ni primijetili. Fleur Axelle
The Shape of Things to Come Working in the hegemony that is mostly dominated by promulgation of paradigm of something which is usually considered as special, unique, original, inspiring practice in a patriarchal art, we begin to understand that transformation which takes place within the viewer while he is staring at this artifact, is inseparably linked to the original product of cause and effect. Heidegger says in his essay, The Origin of Work Art: ‘’The artwork is what first allows the artist to stand out as a master of his (sic) art”. If we take that position, do we, therefore, need to understand that the creator, ancestor, producer stereotyped as co-author, is merely a body that produces, a liberator of the material, if you like to call it that way, which gives the attribute of final conceptual designation of originality and responsibility. Does it matter? Does it matter? Multilateral flexion of this issue can cause a problem but, at the same time, can also harden the absolute constructions, immobility of any construction, or deconstruction, that could have an impact on dislocation. In fact, a dislocation so deep that it can make any text, whether visual or literary, so redundant in an implosion of postmodernity. In this implosion that is postmodern it, actually, is a post-modernity. ... Where am I going? Actually, where am I? Where was I? Let’s start from the beginning. Let’s start from September 16th, 1977, from Queen’s Ride Street (southwest part of London) . What’s up, bro? Let’s start from January 11th, 1994, Grove Road Street, No 193, London, E17 9BZ. Okay, keep on reading! Listen to this! In the year of 1993, Rachel Whiteread Sally made her famous concrete house. Suddenly, familiar interior transformed, personal and private was cast in white, immobile, brutal and bleak material and bare. The deepest, intimate spaces were left bare, exposed to the forces of nature. Ironically, it did not have any of those used, second-hand qualities that are linked to familiar constructions of brick, and given the fact that it was built out of the last in a series of houses that were
destroyed, it was standing as a monolith, challenging interpretations and debates about memory loss and personal history. Judging from the negative reactions regarding the work of Whiteread’s, public is not prone to changes. But, change is something that requires our constant attention (sic). Diverting the view and interrupting the attention, products of chemistry and biology will harm gradual, imperceptible transformation; pigment fading, patina building up, lakh bursting, art works getting old. Anarchic preoccupations are adopted by trade and subsumed into the mire of consumers’ life, making them harmless; punk-style way of dressing up mutates into an expression of fashion, and its political aggression softens it to the modelslike walk. Is that what Situationists call democratization of art; is it finally merging of high and popular culture. Does that effect of “restoration” change? Or the establishment merely accomplishes assimilation of radical ones, tame them and turn them into weakened market goods, making them safe that way? But, what attracts the attention is what is missed, what falls through the gaps between the boards that stand for life? What increases, what destroys, what interferes, what responds, what noise does entropy add or take away the experience of creativity and interpretation? Which part of ourselves should we preserve, and when should we leave ourselves to the forces of nature, and when no longer in control, what do we become then? Ethereal photographs by Sally Mann that show bodies left behind to rotten naturally, on the body farm, demystify the process of decay but, at the same time, provoke questions about what we are and are our systems of belief, philosophy, religion only the unnecessary appendix to work of the biological transformation and decay. Although her works still display the unusual simple feature of oddness, we can no longer seek for refuge in the form of those expressive portraits, as it implodes, metaphorically and literally.
Distances, edges, gaps, verges, the slightest move transforms the meaning, making possible interpretations ambiguous. If context makes 99% of the meaning, then possibilities for disorder are countless. The artist can (try to) dictate what to see and how to look at it, John Baldessari, for example, explores the narrative potential of images and associative power of language within the specific boundaries of artwork. But, words and paintings are merely the signals and artists cannot predict links, networks and connections that will occur in the observer’s subconscious. Creating of art is a way to translate from one context to another, with change of meaning. Barbara Kruger is experimenting with the idea of sex change, how much male and female definitions are unstable expressions and how easy it is to swap identities. Through all her works, Kruger forces the viewer to re-assess, review and re-evaluate the painting, text, artist, response and aspects of culture, beliefs, expectations that bring into interpreting and translating ideas from work of art to our own beliefs. Norbert Wiener, mathematician, developed the concept of cybernetics and so began the study of “elements of the message of unusual noise which disturbs its transmission.” What we see here is how disorganized elements of randomness become negative of information. During the translation process, the meaning is inevitably and inexorably changed, same words have different connotations in different languages. Interpreter could understand or interpret things differently, by bringing cultural systems of belief into a text that did not exist in its original form. The text you are reading can be a translation, maybe even a translation of the translation, with elements of noise unfamiliar with the original message, and you probably have not even noticed anything. Fleur Axelle
untitled/ 2011 drawing on paper/graphite [150x120cm]
untitled/ 2012 drawing on paper/graphite, pastel [210x140cm]
Anna-Maria Bogner www.ambogner.com
Each object talks about space The artistic work of Anna-Maria Bogner is driven by a preoccupation with space and its interaction with social configurations. Her installations, objects and drawings focus on the appropriation of space, space limitations and the spaces in between. Her work is characterized by a close interlinkage of the artistic object, its perception and the subjective position of the artist. Thus the observer is compelled to abandon his/her personal pre-perception of the multiple spaces, which are created by Bogner’s objects and form an intrinsic part of them. Bogner’s work points to the mutual interdependence of experience and situation in the individual appropriation of space. It deconstructs a naive understanding of space and demonstrates that a close examination of divergent perspectives on space is needed to experience the borders of one’s own spatiality and its experience.
untitled/ 2011 drawing on paper/ graphite [310x120cm]
Billy Holiday 2009ŠCedric Christie, image Paul Tucker, courtesy Flowers, London.
Cedric Christie www.cedricchristie.com Cedric Christie was born in London in 1962, and lives and works in London. His work explores a broad range of cultural and art historical references, often using humour and irony as subtle vehicles of communication. Incorporating and manipulating everyday objects such as, snooker balls, scaffolding, and cars he creates objects that are meticulously and skilfully made and that become both a critical appraisal of modernism as well as a playful exploration of form and meaning. Christie’s work betrays a fascination with the fluid line between art and object, manifesting the mercurial spirit inherent in embracing indistinction. Cedric has exhibited widely in UK and internationally and has curated a number of large scale group exhibitions.
White Phoenix 2009ŠCedric Christie, image Paul Tucker, courtesy Flowers, London.
Pink Painting 1996-2009ŠCedric Christie, image Paul Tucker, courtesy Flowers, London.
untitled [Dressur] 2011 80 x 60 cm
Christina Boula www.christinaboula.com In her work, Christina Boula fathoms the discrepancy between the performer and his setting. She asks, “What lies behind which preset boundaries? Where can someone intervene and what happens when conditions suddenly change? In her performances, she shows us the different points of contact which enable us to comprehend what is happening. She either carries us off to a place in which we ourselves become performing elements or she leaves us behind to see what and how things can be. Through shifting the concepts of space and surrounding space, she moves us to situations in which we must realize that she has made us part of the scene. She lets us believe that we are only spectators; however, we are compelled to recognize the complexity of her settings. The continuous engagement with the body and how it conducts itself in the context she presents it, gives us little glimpses into her work. Change, progress and death are playing an especially central role. Remaining still or even being connected to something is not to be found by Christina, because the progression of time is a constant companion as it relates to change or even mutation. Continual transformation, everything is in motion, whether that motion is psychological or physical, Christina Boula examines all the facets of boundaries.
untitled [Eidolon] 2011 30 x 42 cm
untitled [Death] 2011 motorised crow
Just Begin, Daniel Devlin! www.danieldevlin.co.uk ‘One must not spend time doubting, one must just begin’ is the opening slogan for one of Daniel Devlin’s films, and yet Devlin never really begins any art. In fact, Devlin habitually avoids making any art, preferring rather to languish in the Ur stages of the art process. He frets not about what artwork he will make but rather indulges himself in neurotic self-analysis about what art itself is. In the video Conversation, Devlin and his Doppelganger (the artist plays both characters) sit around drinking coffee, one of the Devlins boring the other with rhetorical questions regarding the definition of ‘art’. Devlin 1 ponders one such definition he has read as ‘culturally significant meaning skilfully encoded in affecting sensuous medium’, a phrase he muses over until he drives Devlin 2 so crazy that he throws a glass of water over him. With a background soundtrack of canned audience laughter, booing and hissing, the philosophical questioning here is reduced to the slapstick humour of an American sitcom. Devlin is not really interested in finding answers; if he were, then he would have to get on and make some art, not lazy conversation. Devlin is a self-confessed cynic. His videos are full of references to belief, and more specifically his inability to believe in himself as an artist or really to believe in art. He suggests that if he might only pretend to act like an artist, he might successfully pull off the illusion of being, or at least feeling, like an artist. In Window Tate, for example, Devlin Photoshops his name over the entrance to Tate Modern, replacing for a brief moment the existing exhibition banner for Frida Kahlo. He has also created a bogus magazine advert publicising the upcoming Recent Paintings exhibition of Herzog Dellafiore, a fake artist created once again by Devlin. In both cases, he neatly sidesteps the responsibility of making his own work, in the first instance allowing his name
on the exhibition banner to stand in for any real exhibition, in the second passing off a badly disguised Bruce McLean painting as his, or rather his pseudonym’s, own. Each time, Devlin conceives of a seductive and plausible decoy to deflect the attention of the audience away from the gaping absence of his own work. Devlin is, then, an expert in making meta-artworks: objects and statements that explain art or function as its accessories or souvenirs, but can never be taken for the artwork themselves. He has even created his own wikipedia entry with links to his publishing company Susak Press and Susak Expo, an annual ‘art event’ on the Croatian island of Susak initiated by Devlin last year, and which, despite the grandiose internet statement (since erased) favourably comparing the latter to the prestigious Venice Biennale, will probably not have a second outing. Adding to the smokescreen of misinformation, Devlin also claims to be part of a group called the Young Chelsea Artists (note that this neologism doesn’t receive wikipedia legitimisation). Like the Emperor’s New Clothes, Devlin attempts to expose the gullibility of art aficionados when in fact the humiliation should be his – for having nothing to show but empty promises and an aptitude for selfaggrandisement. In another attempt not to make any art, and in fact sadistically to stop others from doing so, Devlin asked the artists he’d invited over for Susak Expo to paint all the wheelbarrows on the island. Taking advantage of the goodwill of the artists in his charge, he also demanded the gratitude of the locals: he made them pose for photographs alongside the new garish orange wheelbarrows that they had never asked to have decorated. Devlin has reversed the well-meaning (if often misguided) intentions of Relational Aesthetics: he constructs scenarios that cynically mimic the utopian model of reciprocal inter-human relations, all the while rendering the model completely meaningless with useless gestures and the exploitation of others for personal gain.
Fortunately for Devlin, he has just enough charisma, just enough hint of vulnerability, to fool his audience into believing in the sincerity of his soulsearching, the real agony behind his tormented artist act. In the first scene of Dokumentary, we find Devlin sitting in a darkened room, face obscured in the shadows. With muffled voice, Devlin makes a pathetic plea of victimhood like the reformed criminal in a crime investigation series: ‘I never intended to cause any harm to anybody… It was never my intention to mislead anyone.’ In a society that raises the bar ever higher for personal achievement and ambition, failure becomes an acceptable, even desirable outcome to hopes and dreams, and Devlin’s work relies on our ability to empathise with his constant failures. Yet when, like Devlin, one tries very little to achieve anything, failure becomes a reassuringly inevitability, an effortless alternative to the stressful expectations that result from accomplishing goals. When Francis Fukuyama declared the end of history in 1989, he also exposed the inherent limitations of postmodern art, an art doomed to recycle itself. All that had been hailed as achievements of postmodern thought – an end to the tyranny of originality, an end to fascist ideology – was revealed to have an unpleasant corollary: an end to the possibility of change. In the 21st century, then, it’s no longer feasible to appropriate postmodern strategies wholesale without appearing to support the status quo, a position increasingly untenable in a new century blighted by violence and intolerance. Devlin’s practice, however, relies on pilfering and recycling art from the past. He re-enacts past artworks – Bas Jan Ader’s Fall, for example, in which the artists cycles straight into a canal – in the manner of the worst pop music cover version: as a vulgar marketing ploy. He usurps the romantic, tragic status of Jan Ader in order to win the compassion and respect of which he is so undeserving.
Jennifer Viviani (2006)
Still from Conversation [2005]
Still from Amsterdam Fall [2005]
Still from Drinking Turkish Coffee With Bruce McLean [2006]
Still from In Conversation With S贸crates [2011]
Frieda, 2001 (light sculpture / photo by Hermann Fink)
Hermann Fink www.exterritorial.at delayed perception / natural born necrophiles to recognize is a cemetery where we comprehend still the terminated reality. the visual space and the time have they’r together - existing / meeting in our consciousness....while the I is just an opportune whitness...an offspring product.
delayed perception, 2007 (dance Hiromi Harada, photo Regina Mierzwa)
Scale, 2004 (dance Makiko Otogino, photo Max Moser)
Vera For ever, 1987
4 quarters [2007]
Herzog Dellafiore www.herzogdellafiore.co.uk Let’s stick together, let’s exhibit together, write manifestos, let’s be a nuisance, let’s protest against every art mafia and against the aesthetics of ... art for art’s sake ! [Enrico Baj, 1957] You stinking fucking cigar smoking bastards and you scented fashionable cows who deal in works of art. [Gustav Metzger, 1965] We live in the fog of neo-formalism [...] artists content in proposing professionally packaged pieces [artworks] which look like art [...] if this is art, then fuck art and fuck those who make it. [Herzog Dellafiore, 2006]
Tennis performance [mixed media, hand-painted court, Chelsea College of Art MA show, two semi-professional players] 2006
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Janko Matic www.jankomatic.co.uk
My work/practice aims to misplace, decontextualize any given matter, object, situation, meaning, from it’s affirmed, conformed and conventional context with the least possible input from my side in order to provide it with a new meaning or ‘semantics’.
Tiananmen traffic sign Adhesive vinyl-cut on a metal panel, 55cm diameter, 2007 Tiananmen 1989 Currently, due to strong Chinese government censorship including Internet censorship, the news-media is forbidden to report anything related to the protests. The event has been almost completely absent from Chinese media, including the Internet. No one is allowed to publish any websites related to the protests. An internet search in Mainland China largely returns no results. It is common for Chinese people to be entirely unaware of the Tiananmen protests. www.wikipedia.org (banned) The work The sign refers to the famous ‘Tank Man’, the anonymous 17 year old man who stood his ground and stopped a column of tanks as the army invasion began. The sign was surreptitiously installed on the main avenue at the east end of the square. In context At once I was stunned by the immensity of China and the kindness of its people. While in residence I despaired at a flawed social structure and rampant centralised censorship. As an outsider stuck between the two realities I felt an overwhelming responsibility to add commentary. One small protest can spiral into a massdemonstration. A fact not lost on the intense military presence in the area. Raising this sign was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
Door Handle [Mixed media, 30 x 18 x 15 cm] 2010
A series of artworks where I combine objects that represent ‘commonness’ or ‘plainness’ with ‘effects’ that represent ‘wealth’ and ‘richness’.
Martini [Mixed media, 30 x 18 x 15 cm] 2010
John Stephens John Stephens was born in Cheshire in the North West of England but spent his early childhood in Germany, where his father was in the British diplomatic service. He later went back to Germany to study fine art at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in Berlin (now called Universitat der Kunste) and was there during the politically significant years of the late 60s. He returned to England in the early 70s to settle in Manchester after a brief time working in the film industry in Munich. He became involved in art education first as a teacher in secondary schools and later in higher education and this has remained a commitment, recently having been Head of Art and Design at the University of Bedfordshire and where he is currently an emeritus research fellow. During the 80s and 90s he was involved in establishing the first collective studios in Manchester and the Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, one of the first artist-run galleries in Britain. Although primarily a painter his practice also involves drawing, printmaking and, over the last few years, photography. As a painter his preoccupation is with the processes of drawing, painting and printmaking leading to a pared down aesthetic within a an abstract idiom. Ultimately however, this is derived from experience of the urban environment with its confined spaces, buildings and interiors; the immanence of surface and a sense of incident, absence and emptiness; a palette determined by ‘found’ industrial and worn colours and the potential for creating a visual poetry from all of this. He sees the urban experience as made up of residues and traces relating to both time and space that accumulate from the personal and private domain as well as that which is political and public.
As a result of these interests Stephens has developed a second strand to his practice with photography enabling him to respond more immediately to what is seen in the urban environment. The work in this exhibition includes photographs from the series Twenty Four Hours, a project involving taking cheap flights from the UK to various destinations and photographing within a 24-hour period. The work invokes the attitude of Guy Debord and the Situationists and the idea of le derivÊ – drifting through urban spaces responding to what is seen and found. The wall drawings are an outcome of recent drawings done in the studio in which the repetitive tracing and cross-hatching of lines are part of complex drawing process used to create planes of tone and surface.
Rijeka Coke Door
Rijeka Tree
Rijeka Market
Basle Feet
Lonely Pink Heart, 2011 [113x33x28cm Table (found object), plinth, ceramic, enamel and elastic]
Self Portrait Humiliated, 2011 [117x137x69cm Ceramic, enamel, found objects]
Kate Lyddon www.katelyddon.com In Kate Lyddon’s figurative paintings and sculptures, opposites are elastic. Here, villains are heroes, winners are losers and competitive aspirations are revelations of human frailty. Ruthlessly and hilariously imaginative, Lyddon’s paintings celebrate the desire for success and its frequent denial in everyday life, sport, leisure and relationships. Her carnivalesque troupes of fragmented and morphing figures suggest a gleefully chaotic universe in which individuals maintain a cartoon capacity for survival beyond bodily obliteration. These works are a dramatization of fundamental human aspirations, self-perceptions, and the pressures borne on individuals by western society to succeed. Lyddon’s paintings are rendered in oil and acrylic paint, as well as collaged materials, to form images of striking visual immediacy and rich textural quality. Her scenarios of playing, winning and losing are influenced by a plethora of sources, from Egyptian hieroglyphs to Expressionist figurative painting, pop music and song lyrics. Boy Meets Girl, 2011 is a vignette inspired by the 1965 hit It’s my Life by The Animals, whose strange proto-gothic sound and cruel lyrics preach a misogynist line: “There’ll be women and their fortunes […] Are you gonna cry/ When I’m squeezing them dry?” In the painting, Lyddon wittily muddies the male-female roles: the female protagonist lies on a bed beside a column of men’s heads and, on the walls, a row of women’s (faceless) heads hung like hunting trophies. Celebrating the ambiguous figure of the antihero, Lyddon’s ribald figuration troubles social norms and identities. The drawing Fun Day, 2011, for example, features a pole dancer who is part man and part woman wearing a protuberant burgundy-coloured devil-mask; this is echoed by another leotard-wearing
figure sporting a Punch mask (Punch is a classic English puppet known for his outlandish humour and short temper). In Winner Takes It All/Loser’s Standing Small, 2011, a row of figures stand in profile, their arms a flurry of lines suggesting rapid movement as they cheer the athletic champions making a dash to the far end of a swimming pool. Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of Lyddon’s works is the disjunction between expressive modes and the artist’s interiority. This is perhaps most clear in Self Portrait, Humiliated 2011, a sculpture of two rotating busts with red clown noses mounted on a snooker table. Here, the motif of humiliation is too farcical to be expressive of some raw, inner emotion. In fact, it explores a wider cultural and human condition: the aspiration to be at once on display and hidden away. We are all, she suggests, caught between the poles of heroicism and villainy. Colin Perry [Text accompanying the exhibition Heroes and Villains at Daniela Da Prato Gallery, Paris, 2011]
The Joke, 2011 [120x150cm Acrylic, oil and collage on canvas]
If You Want to Dance, Dance, 2009 [130x180cm Acrylic, oil and collage on linen]
We’re Straight, 2010 [70x90cm Acrylic, oil and collage on canvas]
The Dome of St Paul’s Cathedral (‘Si monumentum requiris circumspice...’’) ‘London Retrospective’ a continuing series, postcards of London tourist sights reversed 180 degrees.
Keran James www.keranjames.com In an age of blase irony and glib one-liners, Keran James takes on a serious challenge: the one presented to the Modernist artist by Fredric Jameson, to avoid the image by way of the image. He understands the need to strip the image of its specularity; and, more importantly, over the course of the years he has intuitively hit on a succession of different ways to do it. Primarily film and photography based, James’ work is centred on a material understanding of the world we find ourselves in, siting itself self-consciously at the intersection of a past, present and future that affect our perception and cause a natural dislocation as we constantly update our position within it.
Feast in the House of Levi after Veronese limited edition 2012
Though the stimulus for each piece might depend on circumstance and opportunity, the theme is constant. What we are looking at is hardly ever what we are seeing. There’s always something beneath or behind. What is outside the frame vitally informs what is within it. What is absent making its presence felt in text or title. In ‘London Retrospective’ a postcard of an ice cream stand in an anonymous park is presented as an image of Buckingham Palace. A baffled tourist turning the card round to read this title enters the frame, becomes a performer in the piece as anyone watching sees him/her enacting the 180 degree reversal made by the artist in the original setting.
final still from Innocent Images video 20 mins 2004
In other works the key is multi-layered appropriation. Generic: a shot of a flowering tree in front of houses (‘Tender’) is a picture of a non-native plant casually transferred to an English suburban street. Art-historical: ‘Car-Dealer’ is a reworking of Poussin’s ‘Et in Arcadia Ego’ (note the pun), simultaneously pushed into live art. The image refers to without documenting the performance in which the grave inscription is made into a banner for the car windscreen, replacing the names of the driver and friend. Death’s warning – I am everywhere - goes out into the streets, crosses borders, with its blackly humorous literal message. More important is the wider interpretation - where you are is rarely certain. Michael Keenan
Car Dealer after Poussin (detail) c-type print 1999
art illuminates life
kunst illuminiert das leben
l`art illumine la vie
Peter Seewasser peterseewasser.blogspot.com autodidact biennale charisma dynamic erotic function globalisation harmony instinct joy kommunication love milestone nature original potential quintessence rotation sport tolerance upcycling vision whiteness xylophone youth zeitgeist
Touch Me 1, Driftwood and thumbnails
Topmodell Naomi, wastepaper object
Mali Losinj > Sunpower, Expired Suchard Chocolate Box
I Always Get What I Wish For 2011, instalation view, Gallery MC, New York [photos by Alenka Slavinec]
Petra Varl www.petravarl.com Petra Varl is a Slovenian artist who works in drawing, painting, graphics and installation. She has shown her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the São Paolo Biennial, the Ljubljana Museum of Modern Art, Budapest’s Müczarnok Museum, Warsaw’s Zacheta National Gallery and the Vienna Museum of Modern Art (MUMOK). In November 2011 she has presented her latest work »I Always Get What I Wish For« in New York Gallery MC, this year her signs with motifs of Hugs and Kisses are featured in an instalation on the streets of Maribor, the City of Culture 2012. Petra Varl makes simple, stylized drawings of ordinary people in their everyday life. She endeavors to go beyond the confines of reality, which is always relative to the individual viewpoint. The universal theme of mutual relationships, the role of the individual in society and his involvement in cultural and social contexts of his own environment is placed in a dream-world of seemingly innocent and unremarkable figures. The series of drawings and small serigraphs, features with a characteristically simple line, figural pairs that are often identical and yet express diametrically opposite meanings. The male figures showing off their erect biceps and the female figures sitting in a seductive pose play with their cliché-like denotations, generally accepted by society at large: strong and smart or pretty and smart. The figures are placed against an empty background, without introducing potential, supplemental contexts and meanings, but expose only their symbolic role and place within a given place and time. Miha Colner
I Always Get What I Wish For 2011, instalation view, Gallery MC, New York [photos by Jaka Vinšek]
Robin Seir www.robinseir.com Robin Seir states that his work is a hybrid between 60’s and 70’s High Modernism and aesthetical samples taken from our way of visualising speed through commodities and market fetishism. Referencing the designs of Adidas shell suits, Speedo swimwear, Nike trainers, racing cars and various sport articles in the traditional mediums of painting and sculpture, often including compositional elements and ideas taken from Greenberg’s strict theories of what makes Art good Art.
’Untitled (Frank Stella Series)’ a series of photographs, taken in 2011, based on Haunch of Venison’s major Frank Stella exhibition Frank Stella - Connections, from the same year which was (is?) the most extensive exhibition of Stella’s work in the UK to date. The photographs are simple shots of the space between
Untitled (Frank Stella Series) II’ Digital Photography, 2011
Stellas paintings taken with a cheap compact camera. The composition in Seir’s images are in a way the revearsal of Stella’s as the sides of Stella’s paintings frame the the white wall they are hung on to, -giving the in-between space a major role in Seir’s photographs.
Untitled (Frank Stella Series) IV’ Digital Photography, 2011
Sarah Rechberger In my recent work I discover the different positions and the interaction in between. I show open systems which reacts with the environment, and reflects that we all influence each other. As an artist i´m not only interested in my own being. I try to open, and to interact in which I create a communication field. An individual,artist is the originator of an action within a system which refers on each other. Every artist searches an object, stone and lays it in the display. The projected lightlines curves around the object. Blaze of the curve. Hyphe is an open culture medium, which receives the information from the air. The culture medium takes up the surrounding space. It displays not only the communication of the artists. The air of the island too, and create it´s own networkdrawing, and developes, changes in time.
Yen Sik Kim www.yensikkim.com 개념들이 전복된다. 경계가 흐려진다. 끝없이 솟아나고 한없이 허물어진다.
대상은 가까이 할 수록 모습을 감추고 멀어질 수록 형상을 드러낸다. 고체는
액체가 되고 구체는 추상이 된다. 관념은 물질이 되고 텍스트는 가독 불가능한 상태로 전이된다. 지각되는 모든 것이 변화한다. 질서 있는 것에서 무질서한 것으로, 간단한 것에서 복잡한 것으로, 차이가 있는 것에서 차이가 없는
것으로, 분류된 것에서 혼합된 것으로….. 몸이 허물어진다. 허물어진 몸의
파편들 사이로 액체가 흐른다. 실체의 분리, 실존의 무너짐은 불안과 허무를 수반하지만 역설적으로 그 현상은 너무나 아름답다.
나는. 이러한 ‘변화’와 ‘전이’에 대한 개념을 시각화하기 위해 물질의 액체적 성질을 이용한다. 일상적 지각에 드러난 사물의 실재적 이미지를 물질로
환원하여 재구성하고 열을 가함으로써 그 이미지에 나타나는 변화와 유동의 과정에 주목하며 이를 통해 생성되는 카오스적 환영을 표현한다. 나의
이러한 작업은 “시간에 기반을 둔 회화”로서 하나의 형식을 이루며 시간의
흐름 위에서 이미지의 변형을 이끌어내는 과정에 회화적 감성이 적극적으로 표출된다.
작업 과정에서 고체상태의 물질로 재구성된 구체적 이미지는 열에 의해 액체 상태로의 상전이(phase transition)가 이루어지고 시간의 흐름에 따라 점차
흩어져 ‘형상 이전의 형상, 형태 너머의 형태’로 끝없이 모습을 바꾸며 추상적
이미지로 변화한다. 이러한 이미지의 구체에서 추상으로의 이행은 불확실성과 불안정성을 내포하며 느리게 연속적으로 일어난다. 구체에서 추상으로
유동하는 이미지는 ‘내부로부터의 변형’, ‘생성과 소멸’, 또는 ‘영원으로의 회귀’
와 같은 철학적 개념에 대한 가능한 시각적 기호로서 작용한다. 더불어 현존의 환영에 대한 고안이며 고정관념에 대한 교란을 위한 장치이다.
T RANSLAT ION CHANGE MUTAT ION
23 to 29 EXPO[RT] April SUSAK 2012
studio1.4 John Stephens Keran James
Robin Seir
Janko Matic Petra Varl Christina Boula
Anna-Maria Bogner
Cedric Christie Herzog Dellafiore Kate Lyddon
Yen Sik Kim
Hermann Fink Peter Seewasser Sarah Rechberger
Daniel Devlin
www.susakpress.com
Kate Lyddon Anna-Maria Bogner Robin Seir Hermann Fink Janko Matic Sarah Rechberger John Stephens Peter Seewasser Herzog Dellafiore Daniel Devlin Yen Sik Kim Petra Varl Christina Boula Cedric Christie Keran James