Anselm Kiefer. Vernissage, Berlin.

Anselm Kiefer. Life Time -World Time. Galerie Bastian. 12 May - 28 July 2018.

The line to get in.

Press Release: We are pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Anselm Kiefer, the first exhibition in Germany of sculpture in vitrines.The artist's works have evolved from his continuous dialogue with European literature since its origins in Antiquity and its multi-faceted poetic and narrative traditions.Anselm Kiefer addresses archetypes of the Bible, Jewish mysticism, the poetry of Ingeborg Bachmann, Paul Celan, Rainer Maria Rilke and the sculptural work of Auguste Rodin and Joseph Beuys. Surprisingly free metamorphoses arise from ordinary ›non-artistic‹ materials in Kiefer’s latest works.
It is deeply rooted in Kiefer's consciousness that every poem, every myth, spiritually long-born, profane or archaic from any time period, requires a claim to transfer the magic of a beginning into one's own time. Undoubtedly, this idea touches upon all quotidian and metaphysical dimensions, physics and poetry, the world of Christian and Jewish worship, the philosophical questions of meaning, dogma and guilt, the invisible world, the ›miraculous‹ when it obtains the world of the phantastic and means Benjamin's »profane enlightenment«. Approaching those philosophical questions beyond any purpose requires no justification »as there is no solution and the questions themselves are the problem«, according to Robert Spaemann.
Anselm Kiefer, who lives and works in Croissy near Paris, is one of the most influential artists of our time. In recent months, his oeuvre has been seen in extensive exhibitions, including the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Kiefer was awarded the J. Paul Getty Medal in November 2017. His monumental sculpture »Uraeus« was installed at Rockefeller Plaza in New York at the beginning of May.»Life Time – World Time« marks the artist's fifth solo exhibition at Galerie Bastian. For the opening of the exhibition, the monograph Anselm Kiefer. Paintings, edited by Heiner Bastian is presented by Schirmer/Mosel, Munich.

Galerie Bastian

Transitions Ep.1: Splintered Planes.

I am very pleased to have pieces from 'The Aviarist' series included in the first show of 2017, at Dada Post Gallery in Berlin. They were selected by the newly appointed curator, Sheena Malone and I am excited to show alongside such strong company.

Opening: Saturday April 1, 2017.  19.00hr.
Exhibition continues until: Saturday May 13, 2017

Artists:
Pascal Brateau
Pierre Oscar Brunet
Chris Dennis
Nicholas Hanisch
Michel Lamoller
Enda O'Donoghue
Eeva-Liisa Puhukka
Ethna Rose  

Dada Post. Nordbahnstraße 10 13409 Berlin, Deutschland
info@dadapost.com

Eva Grün - Alles wird gut. Galerie Römerapotheke, Zürich.

Eva Grün - Alles wird gut. Galerie Römerapotheke, Zürich.
Vernissage 25.08.2016.

Eva Grün - detail

Eva Grün - detail

Eva Grün - detail

The show continues until 22.10.

Text (German only).           

„Alles wird gut“ tröstet das titelgebende Versprechen der neuesten Ausstellung der Wiener Künstlerin Eva Grün, zu sehen in der Galerie Römerapotheke, Zürich und im Haus für Kunst Uri  2016. Doch das sind die Wörter die übrigbleiben in einem ansonsten geschwärzten Text. Es ist das, was uns erlaubt ist zu lesen. Es muss gut gehen, es darf nicht schieflaufen. Oder doch?

In ihrer neuen Ausstellung geht Eva Grün der Frage nach, welche Drohung hinter dem technologischen Entwicklungsimperativ steckt. Das Beunruhigende verbirgt sich im Detail, es versteckt sich im Kleingedruckten und verbirgt sich hinter schwarzen Balken. Es entfaltet sich im Moment der Katastrophe. Etwa wenn der Dampfer „Utopia“ auf ein Riff aufläuft, liegenbleibt und nun unbemannt als Mahnmal menschlicher Vermessenheit vor sich hin rostet. In den Bildern entwickelt sich ein Spiel der Doppelbödigkeiten und Untiefen. Der poetische Akt des Benennens eines Objekts befindet sich auf Kollisionskurs mit der Realität, der Name wird zum Kollateralschaden, das Wort zum ironischen Vermerk. Was in Eva Grüns Bildern zunächst kompakt gegossen, ja kolossal erscheint, zerfällt bei näherer Betrachtung in Ebenen und Plateaus, und selbst die Schichtung von Untergrund, Material und Aussage zerbirst in polarisierte, gegensätzlich aufgeladene Fragmente. Es bietet sich eine im Fernglas betrachtete Welt, die sich nur dem mikroskopischen Auge erklärt. Dieses Spannungsfeld zwingt den Betrachter dazu, sich seinen eigenen Reim zu machen, denn die Realitätscollage dockt zwar an unsere Alltagswahrnehmung an, doch wird das Alltägliche entfremdet und neu verschlüsselt. Die Headlines aus den Zeitungen und ihre besserwisserischen Serifen werden zu ironischen Zitaten, die die Verwirrung akzentuieren, statt sie zu lösen. Der stete Perspektivenwechsel lässt gegensätzliche Deutungen zu, verweigert sich aber einer letztgültigen Interpretation und fordert die Individualität des Betrachtenden heraus, ihre Merkfähigkeit und ihr Assoziationsvermögen. Wie ein Splitter, den man sich auf einer verwitterten Parkbank einzieht, prägen sich die Sinnkontraste der in kühlen Tönen gehaltenen Bilder ein.

Es ist keine theoriegemästete Kunst, die sich nur akademischer Interpretation zugänglich zeigt. Die Sinnlichkeit der Formgebung ergibt sich aus dem Wechselspiel von Monumentalität, Zärtlichkeit und prickelndem Witz. Ist es schon oder noch Ernst? Die Ambivalenz humorvoller Drohungen und offener Fragen fesseln in einer Kettenreaktion visueller Double Binds und verraten, dass dahinter eine Künstlerin steckt, die mit wachem Verstand, offenen Augen, unersättlicher Neugier und hintergründigem Charme steckt. Eva Grün entwirft das Gegenprotokoll zum technikbesoffenen Zeitgeist. Sanft und sarkastisch stellt sie in ihren geschmackvoll verwitterten und multipel chiffrierten Werken die Frage Hannah Arendts: Was verlieren wir, wenn wir gewinnen? Diese Bilder erlauben keinen Rückzug in die Kontemplation, sondern fordern Emotionsfähigkeit und die Offenheit für Affekte heraus.

Der Slogan „Alles wird gut“, taugt nach der Betrachtung der Bilder nur noch zur mantrenhaften Selbstbeschwörung , denn was Eva Grüns Kunst sicher nicht darstellt, ist die Aufforderung zu gedankenverlorener Hingabe, auch wenn die Detailvernarrtheit und die labyrinthische Vielschichtigkeit ihrer Werke zum Träumen und Alpträumen verführen und man Gefahr läuft, vom eigenen Lachen geweckt zu werden.

Galerie Römerapotheke.

David Smith: Form in Colour. Hauser and Wirth, Zürich.

Vernissage. June 11, 2016

Press Release: Hauser & Wirth Zürich is delighted to present a solo exhibition of works by the late American sculptor, painter and draughtsman, David Smith (1906 – 1965). A titan of 20th-century art, Smith transformed the innovations of European modernism into a richly diverse new artistic language. Over a 33-year career he greatly expanded the notion of what sculpture could be, its relationship to space and importantly moved the site of its production, and ultimately our experience of it, from the artist’s atelier and art foundry into the realms of industry and nature. Spanning pure abstraction and poetic figuration, Smith’s deeply humanist vision has inspired generations of sculptors for over 50 years since his death.
This exhibition marks the gallery’s first presentation of the artist since beginning work with the estate in 2015, and focuses on Smith’s practice between 1958 and 1964, the important final years of his life. The late 1950s marked a dramatic expansion of his ambition and productivity and by the 1960s Smith was at the height of his creative powers, garnering international attention as the leading sculptor of his generation. Exploring the dialogue between Smith’s use of form and colour, geometry and gesture, the show brings together a selection of painted steel sculptures and spray-paint works, highlighting Smith’s objective to merge the concerns of two- and three-dimensional media.
Painting and drawing remained integral to Smith’s creative output throughout his career. ‘Drawings’, he claimed, ‘are studies for sculpture, sometimes what sculpture is, sometimes what sculpture never can be’. Around 1958, almost immediately after the invention of the aerosol spray can, Smith began his Sprays. Made simultaneously to some of his most rigorously geometric sculpture, the Sprays are often loosely gestural. Though the Sprays freed Smith’s form from the constraints of gravity, and his sculpture, for Smith the two mediums were conceptually continuous. The exhibition’s inclusion of both sculpture and painting enriches the viewer’s understanding of Smith’s oeuvre, emphasising his conviction that every facet of his visual output represents an essential element of his total artistic vision.
With the Sprays, Smith adopted a medium that was developed from, and was perfectly aligned with, his sculptural process. When creating a sculpture, Smith would often place components of the work in progress on his white painted floor before joining them together. The welding often scorched the paint surface leaving negative images of the sculpture. Inspired by these incidental patterns, Smith began work on the Sprays, employing any material at hand, from nuts and bolts to tree branches, and even leftovers from his table, which he arranged on paper or canvas before spraying over the composition with industrial enamel paint. When the objects were removed, ghostly silhouettes remained, their outlines hazy from the diffused paint that seeped beneath the objects’ edges. The Sprays encapsulate the overlap between two- and three-dimensional activities in Smith’s practice. As in the artist’s sculptures, the Sprays present an interplay of simple, bold forms to produce complex rhythms in space. They examine the ambiguity between positive and negative space, contrasting layers of effervescent colour with a vacuum of pure white. Exercising spontaneity absent from sculpture, the Sprays represent a direct and unmediated form of expression that, for Smith, provided more than simple studies for his sculptural work.
Appearing contemporary and ever-relevant today, Smith’s sculptures were seen as an extremely radical challenge to modernist taste at the time they were made. The sculptures featured in the exhibition illustrate Smith’s increasing focus on the visual nature of three-dimensional work, and its potential as a painterly medium. In ‘Dida’s Circle on a Fungus’ (1961) and ‘Ninety Father’ (1961), the contrast between loosely painted surface – textural marks made by Smith with industrial enamels and small brushes which are often compared to the spontaneous brushwork of Abstract Expressionists – and assertive geometric forms, creates a lyrical balance. Far beyond cosmetic application, Smith’s use of colour controls the form, the dappled finish working to soften the strict, geometric lines.
‘Circles Intercepted’ (1961) is in many respects a three-dimensional painting. Smith’s dramatically different treatment of colour and form on the two ‘sides’ of the sculpture exemplifies his most radical contribution to the language of sculpture – that is the virtual impossibility for the viewer to ‘possess’ the totality of the object as he / she experiences it from different views. When seen from the front, other views of the sculpture can never be predicted. The viewer is forced to experience the sculpture as a series of unique images in real time, rather than viewing it, and then ‘producing’ its wholeness in one’s own imagination. The work has a muscular authority, and is a tour-de-force in which very heavy plates of steel are suspended in mid-air before our eyes. In addition, the handmade quality and irregularities of the circular forms assert the physical reality of the layered concentric discs as they are pushed and pulled in space – intercepted – by the bars radiating through them. It is all the more noteworthy in this context how Smith used the application of paint to alter the specific weights and forms of the sculpture, and to ultimately prioritise the visual over the physical.
Painted sculpture, in and of itself, was not new – although it was unorthodox at a time when ‘truth to materials’ was the standard, accepted practice for sculpture. As Smith noted, sculpture had been painted from its earliest history. Smith however, introduced a distinctly modern conceptual intention, one that, like his Sprays, takes on vision itself as a subject; Smith was not making painted sculpture, he was making sculpture about painting.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully–illustrated catalogue featuring historic archival images and an essay by curator and art historian Michelle White.

 JUNE 12 - 18 SEPTEMBER

HAUSER & WIRTH

Vanessa Billy. All is Porous. Bolte Lang - Zürich. June, 8th 2016.

Press Release:-
all is porous - Vanessa Billy
9th June – 13th August 2016
Informed by reflections on the way we humans treat and interact with our environment, Vanessa Billy’s new body of work looks at the consequences even the most insignificant actions might have. The gallery’s second exhibition in its refurbished space is in part the result of Billy’s engagement with alchemical processes where trial and error define the final outcome and new materials are tested and exploited to serve the artist’s purpose.
Vanessa Billy’ s strong fascination with energy was at the center of her last BolteLang exhibition Clean Cold Fire (2013) where works such as Smells like electricity (rampant) (2013) gave the invisible power that all our lives depend on a shape by connecting it to its results.
In all is porous her subject of investigation is much more the energy that evades. What happens to all that energy created by us going about our lives – when we take a train, send data, cook, make a phone call, make babies? What are the by-products and side-effects that we do not consciously account for?
Where for her previous exhibition at BolteLang sculpted and cast lemons came to symbolise energy (Refresh Refresh (2013)) for all is porous, Billy has turned her attention to their rind, more specifically the fact that under a microscope the pitted and pocked skin of a lemon resembles our own in both its literal and metaphorical permeability. She scrutinises this porosity or permeability again and again with a series of works executed in bronze, bio-resin, and food grade silicon – circling the paradox that the skin is that which joins us and separates us from the world.

Vanessa Billy was born 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland and lives and works in Zurich.
Recent and upcoming exhibitions include:
solo: Kunsthalle St. Gallen (2016, upcoming); Where is Wild?, c-o-m-p-o-s-i-t-e, Brussels; Stranded, Limoncello, London (both 2015); Sustain, Sustain, Collective Gallery Edinburgh (2014); Dear Energy, Sommer & Kohl, Berlin; Vider la terre pour remplir le ciel, Piano Nobile, Geneva (both 2013).
group: Project 1049, LUMA Foundation, Gstaad (forthcoming); Demain dans la bataille, pense à moi, Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne; WAR II, Mostyn, Llandudno; Waterbound, Kallmann Museum, Ismaning (all 2015)

BolteLang

Marco Angelo Sembinelli - Die Galerie. April 29, 2016

It is good to see something happening, from an art point of view, in this rapidly changing part of Zürich (which is also pretty close to being my neck of the woods).

I think this is the inaugural show, at the cryptically named -'Die Galerie' by young, Swiss artist, Marco Angelo Sembinelli. It features works employing a variety of materials including rust and asphalt.

detail

Vernissage: 29. April 2016 ab 18

30. April 2016 ab 18.00 bis 21.00

04. Mai 2016 ab 15.00 bis 19.00

07. Mai 2016 ab 18.00 bis 21.00

10. Mai 2016 15.00 bis 19.00

14. Mai 2016 18.00 bis 21.00

Finissage: 20. Mai 2016 18.00

Marco Angelo Sembinelli  
Die Galerie