January 2009, Filed under growing crystals, potassium alum crystals, scans, 2009, Maria Eisl
This week on the blog we listened Blue Monday by New Order; we visited Frances Stark At Galerie Buchholz in Köln; we discovered the blog I am a washing machine blog of the young photographer Ioana Hercberg; we passed by London to see Kai Althoff‘s show at Michael Werner Gallery; we suggested to assist to the presentation & reading by Gerry Bibby at Castillo Corrales.
Having turned into a heavily opinionated and high-strung personality, which seems to brood with anger that unloads fast, Kai Althoff wishes to create an antidote to this state of mind, by work that aesthetically calms the soul and seeks to feed a notion of shelter in an elegance reflecting the utilization of art in the homes of people with good taste and intellectual brilliance in times long passed. As soon as this notion seems to be satisfied, he starts to wrangle equally with the content and comfort and ultimate value of such work, which if successful, results in a void that defies words and emotions to be expressed without causing nausea. He seems to wish his art to embody the hefty balance between spirituality and adornment. But spirituality and adornment are no enemies, – rather both are to discover their natural unification within the feeble attempt to make life bearable.
Kai Althoff, born 1966 in Cologne, currently lives and works in New York.
26 September through 15 November 2014
22 Upper Brook Street, London W1K 7PZ
Dries Van Noten final show, 2014
This week on the blog we visited Bex & Arts, a Contemporary Sculpture Triennal in Switzerland; saw Bertrand Bonello at Centre Pompidou; passed by Peter Lindbergh at Gagosian Paris and Yoko Uhoda Gallery in Liège to see a show curated by Christophe Daviet-Thery; and finally ended with Neïl Beloufa at ICA in London.
In this first UK institutional exhibition of Neïl Beloufa’s work, the ICA show a selection of his latest works on film alongside recent sculptural works across the Lower Gallery and Theatre. These explore the representation of digital information systems and the often conflicting desires for openly available information within mass media. They are exhibited in specifically designed architectural installations where certain aspects of the images are able to be manipulated and fragmented throughout layers of screens within space.
Installation view of Neïl Beloufa: Counting on People. Photo: Mark Blower
Within the Lower Gallery, audiences will be met by a series of new sculptures and fragmented and live video works. Beloufa seeks to further break the conventional relationship with the screen, reorienting the way the audience relates to the imaginary constructs of a digital realm and the real world. The installation premiers two new films: Data for Desire (2014) seeks to explore and predict via mathematical systems the personality traits and actions of a group of people within a constructed environment, and VENGEANCE (2014) documents the artist’s engagement with a group of youths who directed and developed the film’s narrative. Both of these new works construct situations and scenarios to make powerful statements about the complexities of human interaction and how we choose to interpret the world.
Installation view of Neïl Beloufa: Counting on People. Photo: Mark Blower
In the theatre Beloufa presents the film La domination du monde (World Domination, 2012), which was originally made for his exhibition at the Palais du Tokyo. This features alongside Home is Whenever I’m with You (2014) a new film co-commissioned by the ICA, London and The Banff Centre, Canada. The film illustrates how we choose to communicate via social media and engage with information and new forms of moving imagery since the advent of the internet and its relationship with the viewer.
Installation view of Neïl Beloufa: Counting on People. Photo: Mark Blower
24 Sep 2014 – 16 Nov 2014
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Mall
London
SW1Y 5AH
David Wojnarowicz Reclining (II) , 1981
In her introduction to Portraits in Life and Death, Susan Sontag wrote, ‘… Fleshed and moist-eyed friends and acquaintances stand, sit, slouch, mostly lie – and are made to appear to meditate on their own mortality… Peter Hujar knows that portraits in life are always, also, portraits in death.’
Paul Thek Outside Oakleyville House, 1966
Merce Cunningham and John Cage Seated (II), 1986
MAUREEN PALEY
21 Herald Street
London E2 6JT
Until 24 August 2014