Two exhibitions
dal 17/2/2011 al 21/5/2011
Segnalato da
17/2/2011
Two exhibitions
Culturgest - Edificio Sede da Caixa Geral de Depositos, Lisboa
On view new and recent works of Gedi Sibony presented in a site-specific installation conceived by the artist. Using light, silence, and hints of humor, Sibony's work achieves a nonchalant awkwardness, a proud nudity, and an overall implausibility. For "1 + 1 + 1 = 3" guest curator Friedrich Meschede has chosen Hermann Pitz, Michael Snow and Bernard Voita, artists who use photography and film as their preferred media. A common thread uniting the 3 artists is established by the topos of the studio.
Gedi Sibony
Curator Anthony Huberman
This exhibition gathers together a wide selection of new and recent works of Gedi Sibony (New York, 1973), presented in a site-specific installation conceived by the artist.
Sibony retrieves his materials, often leaving them as he found them, making only slight changes in placement and shape that seem playful or happily accidental. Carpeting, cardboard, vertical blinds, plastic sheets, plywood, hollowcore doors, metal pipes, and fragments of salvaged scraps: the artist’s studio is an orphanage for castaways pulled from extinction. The endeavor is both metaphysical and political as his objects protest a civilization that leaves them behind in its frantic over-production. Instead, byproducts are used, not wasted, and what is in the world is left in the world. What emerges is the fundamental power of bare essentials and the effortless magic of the mundane.
Using light, silence, and hints of humor, Sibony’s work achieves a nonchalant awkwardness, a proud nudity, and an overall implausibility. Part of his work’s miracle is that dirty hands make clean things, or echoing Bruce Nauman, that simple things reveal mystical truths. By privileging the almost forgotten and showing us how well it can succeed, Sibony carefully balances disappearance with reassurance, reminding us that there is plenty more where we’re not looking.
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1 + 1 + 1 = 3
Hermann Pitz, Michael Snow, Bernard Voïta
Curator Friedrich Meschede
This is the second in a series of exhibitions taking place at Culturgest, all based on a simple premise: the presentation of three concurrent solo exhibitions that establish a dialogue between one another and ultimately come together to form a group exhibition. This premise, expressed both in an abbreviated and literal form in the project’s title, is then proposed to different curators, with the pure potentiality of such a premise being opened up to their ideas, areas of interest and choices. This time, guest curator Friedrich Meschede has chosen Hermann Pitz (Oldenburg, Germany, 1956), Michael Snow (Toronto, Canada, 1929) and Bernard Voïta (Cully, Switzerland, 1960), artists who use photography and film as their preferred media.
A common thread uniting the three artists is established by the topos of the studio. Nowadays, art is a form of expression that lives off what is public, frequently seeking its motifs in public life. In particular, the evolution of photography has contributed to this phenomenon (also in art) by permanently showing reality in a clear and unmistakable fashion. For the three artists, however, the studio continues to be a private place in which to develop concepts and inventions from the world of the image that project another reality. The use of photography and film by these artists “documents” this other meaning of art as the individual sketching of a counter-world, as the creation of something hitherto unseen.
Image: Bernard Voïta. Caméra V, 2006
Fundação Caixa Geral de Depósitos - Culturgest
Edifício Sede da Caixa Geral de Depósitos
Rua Arco do Cego, Piso 1 - 1000-300 Lisboa