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Email PageStealing Beauty and I'd give it to you if I could but I borrowed it
January 5, 2008- February 16, 2008
Reception: January 5, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Guy Ben-Ner
Postmasters Gallery
459 W 19th StExtended through Februrary 16th.
Postmasters Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition of two new video works by Israeli artist Guy Ben-Ner opening on January 5 and remaining on view until February 9, 2008. This will be the artist's third show with Postmasters. The reception is scheduled for Saturday, January 5 between 6 and 8 pm.
"Stealing Beauty" was completed during the artist's DAAD residency in Berlin and received 2007 Kunst Film Biennale Award in Cologne in November. "I'd give it to you if I could but I borrowed it" is an installation originally commissioned for 2007 edition of Munster Sculpture Project shown there between June and September.
In both works Ben-Ner continues to use his family exploring, exposing and exploiting the relationship he has with his children. Do-It-Yourself playful "home movies" where deceptive simplicity hides complex, multilayered ideas are Ben-Ner's unique calling card.
The meaning of owning, stealing, borrowing, taking and giving things away forms the conceptual core of the two works in the show.
"Stealing Beauty" was shot without permission at numerous IKEA stores around New York, Berlin and Tel Aviv. In the movie the Ben-Ners quite naturally inhabit idealized showroom interiors with price tags dangling from furniture, and shoppers occasionally interrupting the family's daily routines. Because of the hit-and-run filming, the traditional cinematic continuity is abandoned and the changing sets are stand-ins for their home. The narrative, however, remains linear as the father offers life lessons on the subjects of economic exchange, meaning of private property, ethics, and family love eventually leading to the children's rebellious manifesto.
"I'd give it to you if I could but I borrowed it" is Guy Ben Ner's meditation on Munster - the city of thousands bicycles and the once-in-a-decade exhibition known for "treasure hunt" rides from one artwork to the next. Ben-Ner and the children reconstruct a bicycle by stealing parts from famous artworks in a museum: Duchamp's wheel, Picasso's handlebar, Tinguely's frame, Beuys' pump etc. They take the drug enchanced ride through Munster - the ride and the song they sing along appropriated from Rodney Graham's Tiergarten video. "I'd give it to you if I could but I borrowed it" is presented on the screens attached to stationary bicycles. The video can be watched by pedaling the bike - it can be sped up, slowed down and watched in reverse, turning the control of the artwork to the viewer.
Art Reviews of Stealing Beauty and I'd give it to you if I could but I borrowed it
| New York Magazine January 31, 2008 | Jerry Saltz | "Ikea’s homepage recently proposed: “Feel free to take advantage of us.” At Postmasters Gallery, the wily Guy Ben-Ner has happily obliged. Last year, without permission, this Israel-born artist who lives in New York and Berlin—he ably represented Israel in the 2005 Venice Biennale—installed himself, his wife, and their two cutie-pie kids in Ikea model rooms all over the world. Setting a camcorder on “auto,” Ben-Ner filmed his family in a semi-scripted soap opera. Most scenes last until Ikea staff throws everyone out. The result is the bitingly crackpot, politically poignant eighteen-minute Stealing Beauty...." |
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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Postmasters Gallery was last updated: 2008-10-11
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