calendario eventi  :: 

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16/1/2003

Two exhibitions

Cosmic Galerie, Paris

Haluk AKAKÇE - Annika LARSSON

Annika LARSSON's video installations represent slightly altered universes obeying to autonomous rules. The artist stages only men and deals with primarily male themes and their symbolic language, playing with concepts such as expressions of power, submission or violence.

For her first gallery exhibition in Paris, Annika LARSSON created the video Pink Ball, showing a recurring theme in her work. In the middle of a meticulously controlled setting (a smooth and sterilized beach), three impassive protagonists seem to be absorbed by minimal, ritualized and enigmatic actions. The sharp-edged precision of the framings reinforces the singularity emerging from the icy settings and the use of the sound as an autonomous element exacerbates the tension pre-existing in the video.

The ambiguity of the relations of strength between the different characters lies in the fact that the only expression of power is the one established by the real "queen of the game", Annika LARSSON. "The people I use in my works, rather then creating characters, become figures lacking individual history or depth; they are mere ciphers. I do not mean to just represent Everyman, rather each one of them is the carrier of a wider dialogue strictly related to myself and my intimate being".

Rather than developing an analytical discourse or a simple narrative, she submerges us into a peculiar world where perfection, elegance and the power of details - a hand on a rose bath cap, a pink ball in a man's mouth - confront us with our distress facing the power which emerges from her images.

Annika Larsson was born in Stockholm in 1972. She lives and works in New York.

In 2002 Annika LARSSON showed her work, between others, at the Centre for Contemporary Image (Geneva), at the Institute for Contemporary Art (London), at Fragfabriken (Stockholm) and at Andrea Rosen Gallery (New York). In 2001 she won the prize of the Bâloise and took part in the 49th Venice Biennial.

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Haluk AKAKÇE's work explores the relationships between human and technology using wall paintings and digitally animated video projections. In these latter, the artist imagines science-fiction like landscapes where enigmatic androgynous human entities evolve.

The wall paintings spread over the walls from floor to ceiling to unveil mysterious inner landscapes.

The artist creates these futuristic images using craftsman's techniques, borrowing from Art Nouveau for the ornamentation and from Islamic aesthetic for the movement and rhythms of the whole.

The association of the different techniques and the multiplications of the viewpoints create 3D spaces in which the viewer is invited to enter.

For his first solo show in France, the artist presents a new wall painting and two original video works, Birth of Art and The Fiction of an Isolated Object. Whereas the first piece offers a world made of transparency and colours, the second one possesses a palette limited to black and white where forms converge in an environment that can be entered by following the elegant flow of lines.

Haluk AKAKÇE was born in 1970 in Ankara. He lives and works between New York and London.

In 2002, Haluk AKAKÇE had several solo-shows such as at The Whitney Museum at Philip Morris (New York), at the Centro Nazionale per le Arti Contemporanee (Rome) ; he also participates, among others, to the Shangai and São Paulo Biennales. In 2001, his work was shown at Centre d'Art Contemporain (Geneva), at The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art (Connecticut), at PS1 (New York) and at Deitch Projects (New York).

Image: Haluk AKAKÇE, The Birth of Art, 2002, single channel digital video, 4' loop

Next exhibition: Vanessa BEECROFT, March 14 - April 30, 2003

Cosmic Galerie
76 Rue de Turenne
Paris
331 42717273

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