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29/4/2010

My eyes keep me in trouble

La Station, Nice

curated by artist & curator Tilman

My eyes keep me in trouble is the seventh touring group exhibition organized by CCNOA Brussels, Belgium since 2001. The exhibition premiered in April 2007 at Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem, and subsequently traveled during the Sydney Biennial 2008 to the Sydney College of the Arts Gallery, Sydney and afterwards to The Physics Room, Christchurch, New Zealand. The exhibition is curated by the German artist & curator Tilman and features in general the work of +/- 30 international artists.

As gesture to the guest country and the exhibition venue My eyes keep me in trouble is revised for each venue and will include - along with international artists - a wider selection of national artists – in this case Argentinean artists. This not only provides an insight into the artists’ different artistic approaches and practices and contextualizes their positions at an international level; it also strengthens cultural exchange between the cultural communities involved and enriches the supranational dialogue and discourse on contemporary abstract art.

My eyes keep me in trouble includes site-specific installation(s), wall paintings, paintings, objects, and videos. In view of the varying sizes of prospective venues, however, not all artists will be necessarily always included in all venues. The curator will revise the final selection of artists for each venue.

My eyes keep me in trouble is the title of a song with lyrics and music by blues legend R.L. Burnside. The seemingly innocent yet conscious title of this blues song triggered the idea to form or formulate a dialogue between the different positions and concerns of a number of artists whose practice revolves around the idea of non-representational, reductive or concrete art as the essential approach towards art-making.

The thoughts of Josef Albers on the ’reductive’ – ’to open the eyes’ or ’the eye is thinking’ – immediately came to mind. These ideas, deeply grounded in the history of non-representational art or more precisely of reductive art, and their ongoing influence on artists today, the crossovers with other art movements and even the resurgence of the idea of the ’concrete’ are the givens for this exhibition project.

My eyes keep me in trouble can be seen as the bass line of the visual artist’s very own song. The artist today may no longer be caught by the inner mysteries of life or the metaphysical subjects or theories and –isms, which developed in their wake as an almost logical response.

The artist today lives in a totally visual world and reacts to it, is drawn into it, without this undermining his/her intimate outlook on the world, and often creates a close relationship with the objects/subjects of daily life. The resulting works of art would seem to convey the idea of being environmental property in which the distinction between the personal universe and mass culture starts to blur but the discrete and the intimate remain.

This exhibition can be perceived as a compilation, a gathering of information, thought, content and context relating to today’s artistic practice in the realm of reductive art. The key underlying message may be no more than the message of possibility and a reinstatement of phenomenology, the act of self-seeing. It is the personal eye, which is fascinated by what it discovers. Anything which catches the artist’s eye can be appropriated and used to create a personal language, filtered into the intimate language of art-making spurned by the received ideas and philosophical tenets surrounding the subject of the ’reductive’. At the same time the forgotten language of visual environmental sensation resurfaces and the value of individual properties is reinstated. With the application of different means and media the artist has a great variety of options for expressing his/her involvement with the personalized subjects that are now part of the aesthetic of art making. The end result is a personal journey in which everyone can participate.

This curatorial project is not just intended as yet another interpretation by yet another curator. No one artist is being promoted; no one artists’ group is being presented. The artworks themselves are not to be seen as props underlining a curatorial idea or as commodities launching a new fashion. They speak for themselves as individual œuvres or as staging posts in the visual journey on offer, triggering and encouraging the actual act of seeing. There will be no explanation or theoretical discourse on the content of the exhibition. The viewer entering the space will be given the opportunity to ’see’, to explore the different artworks, their poetry and language, their social space and specificity. (Team CCNOA 2007)

Opening 30 April 2010, 18h

La Station
Halle sud du chantier Sang neuf, 89 route de Turin, Nice
hours: wed-sat 13 - 19

stampa

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