Jimmie Durham made a series of sculptures and drawings that were inspired by his residency at Atelier Calder in Sache'. In 'No Singing' Jordi Colomer presents images that reveal how the city of Eurofarlete thrives, under a blazing sun and strong blowing winds.
Jimmie Durham - Works on Paper: the Saché Series
Galerie Michel Rein is pleased to present "Works on Paper: the Saché Series" from
the 6th of April to the 1st of June 2013.
The gallery has been representing Jimmie Durham for the past ten years. This
collaboration has included his three solo exhibitions at the gallery "Une pierre
presque volante" (2004) "Labyrinth" (2007) and "Regard" (2011).
Jimmie Durham has lived and worked in Europe since 1994. Equally an essay writer
and poet, he is one of the world's most influential contemporary artists. His art and
ideas are of crucial importance to a number of artists, curators and theorists,
particularly of the younger generation.
His work comprises all mediums, from sculpture in the widest sense of the term, a
material apparition in space, to performance, painting, video, writing and very often
drawing. His approach falls into a sort of archeology, the discovery but also the
classification of the traces left by our predecessors. It is a question of
understanding a gesture, repeating it, and reappropriating it to better understand
the stages of its invention, the gestures which form the beginning of an artistic
act.
Jimmie Durham made a series of sculptures and drawings that were inspired by his
residency at Atelier Calder in Saché (January to June 2007). A collection of the
drawings are presented at gallery Michel Rein.
As always with Jimmie Durham, the drawings are the result of an action, a
movement, they appear to be prints on paper, like the marks left by the hand or
by a certain material.
Jimmie Durham has participated in a great number of international exhibitions including Documenta IX and XIII, the Venice
Biennale (1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2013) and at The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris for which the accompanying
book was published in 2009: Pierres Rejetées.
In 2012, a retrospective was dedicated to him at the MuKHA. (cat. A Matter of Life and Death and Singing).
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Jordi Colomer - No Singing
Galerie Michel Rein is proud to present “No Singing”, the third solo
exhibition by Jordi Colomer at the gallery after “Arabian Stars” in
2005 and “Le Dortoir” in 2002.
“It's easier getting gold out of men than from rivers”*
The foundation of a city is not necessarily a heroic act. Everyday a
new city begins to be built on water, concrete, sweat and money.
Some are – almost - a pure idea.
There are glass cities that grow out of offices and others made from tin and card that dance to the rhythm of their own
inhabitants. On one occasion, a group of outlaws were being tailed by the police when their truck broke down in the middle
of the desert. They couldn't keep going or turn back. So they ended up founding a paradise city, the golden city, where the
worst crime was not to have any money. That city was called Mahagonny and Bertolt Brecht envisioned it at the time
when Las Vegas came about shaping the image of the city that we recognize today.
In Prohibido cantar / No Singing a few characters make a gambling den where they offer entertainment games, tricks, love
and food at low prices.
The action takes place close to a dusty road, on the same plot of land and during the time in which
a great private city was planned. With 32 casinos, Gran Escala, planned to attract 25 million visitors, and yet never saw the
light of day, but Euro-Vegas, nearby Madrid, took over the project. These images reveal how the city of Eurofarlete thrives,
under a blazing sun and strong blowing winds. Fragments of what passed there over two days may help to discern the
particular form of organization needed for survival, where everything is on sale at a bargain price or indeed at any price.
The exhibition also presents a new work by Jordi Colomer, Poble Nou (2013). Poble Nou is an old industrial neighbourhood
of Barcelona, constantly evolving. This parking is one of the "outlaw" zones often found in Colomer’s work: deserts, but also
urban zones such as abandoned roofs, investigated and reactivated in Istanbul map (2010) or Crier sur les toits (2011), or
again the wastelands where Anarchitekton’s character walks, delimitating Barcelona, Brasilia or Bucharest.
As in Prohibido
cantar / No Singing, this "suspended" space, where a urban macro-project never took place, is used by the characters in an
unexpected way. Cars temporarily parked – for a visit at the beach – or the mourning group passing by with a coffin, escape
from any official planning. Here is mentioned only what "occurs", and we benefit from witnessing a fortuitous encounter, a
moment where several affairs should match. A young Russian couple on holidays, who just landed, and the neighbors’
accidental and ephemeral passage.
As any fortuitous meeting, this one takes a Buñuel absurd appearance and is
broadcasted by Yulia and Andrei’s improvised commentaries, which are translated in the installation in several languages.
Jordi Colomer was born in Barcelona in 1962. He lives and works between Barcelona and Paris. Enjoying a gifted and marked
sculptural sense, his work spans many mediums, centering on photography, video and the staging of both in exhibition
areas.
The variety of mediums called forth by Jordi Colomer's work and the transversality of his judgment are undoubtedly
linked to his fragmentary education as an architect, an artist and an art historian.
Jordi Colomer’s work was the subject of a solo show at the Jeu de Paume in Paris (2008). He exhibited (among other) in
BOZAR and ARGOS, Brussels (2012), Bronx Museum, NY, USA (2011), the Centre Georges Pompidou (2010), AKBank Art
Center, Istanbul, Turkey (2010).
Opening 6th April 2013, from 4pm to 9pm
Galerie Michel Rein
42 rue de Turenne, Paris
Hours: Tuesday > Saturday 11 am > 7 pm
Free Admission