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Email PageEvolution
May 8, 2008- June 7, 2008
Reception: May 8, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Rina Banerjee, Tony Cragg, Wim Delvoye, Birgit Dieker, Wang Du, Wolfgang Flad, Sylvie Fleury, John Isaacs, Jon Kessler, Tony Matelli, Joel Morrison, Maria Nepomuceno, Michael Parekowhai
Max Lang
229 10th Ave Wang Du Femme, Femmme, Femm, Fem, Fe (2006) |  Tony Cragg Untitled (2008) |  Wim Delvoye Koi (2008) |
Rina Banerjee (Indian, born 1963, lives and works in New York) Tony Cragg (British, born 1949, lives and works in Wuppertal) Wim Delvoye (Belgian, born 1965, lives and works in Gent) Birgit Dieker (German, born 1969, lives and works in Berlin) Wang Du (Chinese, born 1956, lives and works in Paris) Wolfgang Flad (German, born 1974, lives and works in Berlin) Sylvie Fleury (Swiss, born 1961, lives and works in Geneva) John Isaacs (British, born 1968, lives and works in Berlin) Jon Kessler (American, born 1957, lives and works in New York) Tony Matelli (American, born 1971, lives and works in New York) Joel Morrison (American, born 1976, lives and works in Los Angeles and Berlin) Maria Nepomuceno (Brazilian, born 1976, lives and works in Rio de Janeiro) Michael Parekowhai (New Zealand, born 1968, lives and works in Auckland)
The exhibition examines questions of biology and the body in contemporary sculptural practices. Tracing a pseudo-Darwinian storyline from biomorphic abstraction, from flora, to fauna, to the human figure, EVOLUTION covers a broad spectrum of artistic positions, materials and techniques. Apart from the primarily object-related sculptures included, installation and multimedia art are also represented. The works by sculptors from across the globe—including North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and South America—explore contemporary concerns such as the implications of genetic research, the influence of migration on globalization, and the effects of new technologies and media on perception.
EVOLUTION, as a sculptural examination of the living, derives from the classical Pygmalion myth as recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, namely, the conversion and bringing-to-life of material through the sculptural act. The exhibition also touches on the relationship between art and life, and the involvement of the viewer in a work’s genesis. How does a piece of art enter one’s life? As an object, how is it charged with the expectations, yearnings and (material) desires of its observers? Does it have a life of its own? This exhibition aims to address some of these questions.
Beginning with the biomorphic abstraction of Tony Cragg and the neo-modernist mixed media sculpture by the young Berliner Wolfgang Flad, the exhibition continues with Maria Nepomuceno’s tentacle work, Superflux 2. Vines made from sewn-together colored cables and ropes literally writhe as they spread across the gallery floor. The theme of vegetation manifests itself further in the series Weeds by Tony Matelli. His painted bronze casts of dandelions appear to grow from the corners of the walls, momentarily subverting their art-object identity from the viewer. Sylvie Fleury’s oversized, glossy mushrooms, on the other hand, present a glamorous, hallucinatory version of Nature.
Pushing the evolution curve, Michael Parekowhai’s My Sister, My Self, portrays a life-sized, black seal balancing a copy of Marcel Duchamp’s famous Bicycle Wheel on its nose. Reminding us of a circus performance act, Parekowhai connects questions of an objectified natural world with the fetishistic power of the ready-made. In contrast, Wim Delvoye presents the animal as a commodity while also alluding to the uncanny relationship between porcine and human skin in Koi and Eugénie. Naked, bloody flesh is the subject matter of John Isaac’s wax sculptures in which minimalist forms operate in contradiction to the powerful mimetic qualities of the material: organic versus geometric.
Finally, the human figure appears in broken, alienated form. Birgit Dieker’s Rosi grows from countless layers of used clothing, the second skin of human beings. In this way, the inner structure and therefore inner workings of this cloth figure are revealed. Joel Morrison undermines the false dignity of an objet trouvé Apollo bust in his bronze Oh! Paul! Oh! by inserting a Pinocchio corkscrew as a nose and topping it with a wig cast from a bunch of grapes. Likewise, Wang Du plays with the classical register in his three “Graces,” Femme, Femm, Fem, Fe…, whose proportions are deformed by paradoxical optical truncation.
With Rina Banerjee’s installation, EVOLUTION transitions from the natural to the concretely material. Banerjee’s complex assemblages, made from mundane objects, take aim at the re- and de-construction of the exotic in our perception. Finally, Jon Kessler’s multimedia work Swan #3 explores vision and the dissolution of the physical in its digital representation.
Dr. Marc Wellmann is an independent curator and art historian based in Berlin, Germany. He has curated exhibitions in the Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin and the Georg Kolbe Museum in the same city, along with numerous projects in galleries and non-profit spaces. His writings include essays and articles as well as the catalogue raisonné of the work of German post-war sculptor Bernhard Heiliger.
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Max Lang was last updated: 2008-10-11
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