Falke Pisano
dal 29/4/2013 al 14/6/2013
Segnalato da
29/4/2013
Falke Pisano
The Showroom, London
The Body in Crisis. Sculpture, video, print, drawing and installation work: an ongoing investigation into the human body at historical moments of crisis. The backbone of the exhibition is the work Structure For Repetition (not Representation): a large-scale wooden and fabric structure, which is both a sculpture in its own right and also provides a display architecture for images and text.
The Showroom presents a new exhibition by Dutch artist Falke Pisano. Sculpture,
video, print, drawing and installation work are brought together in the latest
iteration of Pisano’s The Body in Crisis series (2011- ), an ongoing
investigation into the human body at historical moments of crisis. It will be
the most significant presentation of her work in the UK to date.
Pisano’s research centres on six historical moments: Pergamon 199; Amsterdam
1571; Paris 1793; Mons 1915; Paris 1974; Houston 1984. Each marks a change on
body experience (be these institutional, administrative or physical); from the
Roman theory of the four ‘humors’, to the shift from feudalism to
industrialisation, to the experience of shellshock in the First World War, to
the privatisation of prison labour. Histories of housing, medicine,
architecture, gender, art, economic and social environments intersect within
Pisano’s research.
The backbone of the exhibition is the work Structure For Repetition (not
Representation) (2011- ): a large-scale wooden and fabric structure, which is
both a sculpture in its own right and also provides a display architecture for
images and text. Two video works explore “bodies in conditions of hunger,
poverty, war and exclusion”. Archival visual material and texts illustrate
structures that have been used to present and represent the body at different
historical moments.
Pisano states “The Body in Crisis has two main components: a performative
process of organisation (concreteness, abstraction, form, method, space, time,
narration etc); and the more immediate expressions that this conceptual
structure facilitates. These expressions originate in a sense of urgency to
speak about real conditions of violence and how art might relate to them.”
“The Body in Crisis extends The Showroom’s consistent profiling of discursive
artistic practices” says Showroom Director Emily Pethick, “with a new focus on
body politics, explored through a very striking, distinct, and at times highly
abstract, visual language.”
The artist will give a talk on the occasion of the exhibition opening on 30
April. A limited edition print made for the exhibition, My Body is Coming Back
to Me (2013), will be on sale at The Showroom.
Notes for Editors
- Falke Pisano (b.1978) is a Dutch artist based in Berlin. She has
exhibited internationally, including at the 2012 Shanghai Biennial and 2009
Venice Biennale. She is represented by Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam and
Hollybush Gardens, London.
- The Showroom is a space for contemporary art that is focused on
collaborative and process-driven approaches to production; be that artworks,
exhibitions, discussions or publications. For thirty years, The Showroom has
invested in artists to make their first solo shows in London, including Jim
Lambie, Eva Rothschild, Mona Hatoum, Simon Starling, Claire Barclay, the
Otolith Group, Can Altay and Emily Wardill.
- Falke Pisano: The Body in Crisis is supported by Arts Council England,
The Embassy of the Netherlands, Mondriaan Fund and The Showroom
Supporters. With thanks to Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam and Hollybush
Gardens, London.
For further information and high-resolution images, please contact
Rachel Cass: rachel@theshowroom.org or 0207 724 4300.
Press Breakfast: 30 April, 9.30–11am
Artist’s Talk: 30 April, 6–6.30pm
Exhibition Preview: 30 April, 6.30–8.30pm
The Showroom
3 Penfold Street, London
Opening hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12-6pm
Admission free