Joachim Koester
dal 8/12/2011 al 18/2/2012
Segnalato da
8/12/2011
Joachim Koester
IAC - Institut d'art contemporain, Villeurbanne
Of Spirits and Empty Spaces. The exhibition at the IAC assembles a large set of existing works and new works, consisting mainly of films and photographs. Joachim Koester has designed the exhibition like a pathway through a maze that fills all the space available and that forms a work in itself.
curated by Nathalie Ergino
The Institut d'art contemporain has invited Joachim Koester for his
first large monographic exhibition. Born in 1962 in Copenhagen
(Denmark), Joachim Koester lives and works in Copenhagen and New
York.
Joachim Koester participated in Documenta 10 in Kassel (1997) and in
the Venice Biennial (2005). He has had numerous solo and group
exhibitions around the world. Recent monographic exhibitions were held
at Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2010), Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover
(2010), Turker Art Museum, Finland (2009) and Moderna Museet,
Stockholm (2007) and in France, in particular at Centre National de la
Photographie, Paris (2001).
The exhibition at the IAC assembles a large set of existing works and
new works, consisting mainly of films and photographs. Joachim Koester
has designed the exhibition like a pathway through a maze that fills
all the space available and that forms a work in itself.
Drawing on both the documentary and fiction, Joachim Koester's work
re-examines and reactivates certain forms from the past while paying
attention to the questions of conscience and the fading of the senses.
In a cinematographic spirit, he develops a recurrent principle of
image editing to grasp a collective memory and perform both mental and
geographic exploration.
In this permanent investigation of the test of time and of erasure,
Joachim Koester draws on the duality of the scientific relationship
with the real and sensitive experience. Thus the representation as
photos or film of places full of history and then deserted to which he
turns often accomplishes this voluntary abolition of the frontiers
between rationality and empiricism.
Joachim Koester's 'ghost-hunting' in his works aimed at bringing back
forgotten persons or places, is often related to occultism or rituals
experimenting with new perceptions. This brings to mind Henri
Michaux's drawings under mescaline, Carlos Castaneda's shamanistic
research, venues for black magic or outlaw communities or
'psychogeography' areas. Joachim Koester's recent works display the
human body by the creation of 'Choreographies' with a minimalist
presentation of the trance, a 'possessed' body. Interested in
exploring an unknown mental world, the artist re-examines Henri
Michaux's drawings under mescaline by making a 'psychedelic' film. The
blinding effect is that of 'Flicker' aesthetics.
Joachim Koester's conceptual and experimental approach creates
tension between the rational and the irrational and corresponds in
part to the research conducted by the 'Laboratoire espace cerveau*' at
the Institut d'art contemporain. Within this framework, the artist
proposes as study works 'Le rideau des rêves. Visions hypnagogiques'
presented by Yann Chateigné.
Press contact: Delphine Peyronnet: t. +33 (0)4 78034700 f. +33 (0)4 78034709 d.peyronnet@i-ac.eu
Image: Joachim Koester, Tarantism, 2007 © Joachim Koester
Press Preview: 9 December 2011, 11 a.m.
Opening: 9 December 2011, 6.30 p.m.
Institut d'art contemporain
11 rue Docteur Dolard 69100 Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes
Hours: Wednesday to Sunday 1p.m. - 7p.m.
Admission: full: 4 € / reduced: 2,50 €