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9/11/2004

Facts are stupid things

Staub(g*fzk!), Zurich

9 artists

This quote from Ronald Reagan, a silly slip of the tongue in 1988, anticipates what we accept today almost without opposition: branding and media shape our perception. Fiction is reality. Facts are stupid things!

For the exhibition "facts are stupid things”, Staub(g*fzk!) invited 9 artists whose work explores the boundary between fiction and reality.

The starting point for Christoph Draeger’s (*1965, lives in New York and Zürich) "Palestinian Teenage Riot” and "Wailing Wall” are images from the daily press. The three meters long and one meter high work, "Wailing Wall” stands silently on the gallery floor in front of the picture, "Palestinian Teenage Riot”. The spectator’s gaze wanders over the Wailing Wall to the depiction of rampaging teenagers. However, if one changes one’s position to the side of the teenagers, the grey concrete stones on the backside of the Wailing Wall become a symbol of the daily growing wall between Israel and Palestine.

Next to Draeger’s work hangs a large-scale drawing by Marguerite Kahrl (*1966, lives in New York). In these complex drawings, Kahrl constructs fictive reality systems. Her diagrams are about new technologies and fictive landscapes. Formal aspects mingle with themes such as surveillance, nuclear fuel, arms production and information transmission. Kahrls drawings develop slowly and in multiple layers. They allow a space for reflection as one considers the detailed progression of a self-made world unfolding.

Draeger’s subtle shifts in context and Kahrls’ fictive reality constructions are complemented by a photographic work by Mark Divo (*1966, lives in Zürich). Divos’ large scale photo "Adventure Humanity” is based on Théodore Géricaults painting "The Raft of the Medusa (1818/19)” – a Tableau Vivant in which different protagonists assemble in one image. Divo interprets the motif of the shipwreck as a representation of the idea of surrendering to the flood of information and to advertising slogans.

The infiltration of brands in all areas of life are the theme of the two Madonna paintings by Ivana Falconi (*1970, lives in Cadenazzo). Painted in oil on wood and set in pompous frames, Falconis Madonnas wear Adidas and Nikes. As with religion, branding requires faith. Both, religion and branding operate with symbols and cult figures, act globally by using franchising systems and demand unconditional surrender to opinion leaders’ characterized system of values.

Elise Engler’s (*1956, lives in New York) work is characterized by a strong interest in archiving and cataloguing. "Wrapped in the Flag” is a drawing in progress, that Engler began working on at the outbreak of Iraq war. Meticulously, Engler follows the news of names and nationalities of the dead (US and allies). With colored pencil she draws a silhouette of the dead, the silhouette is then filled in with the casualty’s respective flag, providing information about gender, age and nationality. Engler’s ongoing project, which already fills five 150 cm long and 30 cm wide paper sheets, can be seen as a memorial against war.

Opposite Engler’s drawings hangs a large-scale oil painting of Caroline Bachmann (*1963, lives in Lucerne) and Stefan Banz (*1961, lives in Lucerne). Like Engler, Bachmann and Banz occupy themselves in their work "As I opened Fire” with the Iraq war. The artists have painted in oil the official photo of the US government, and added a quote from one of Roy Lichtenstein’s works ("As I opened fire, I knew why Tex hadn’t bust me / if he had / the enemy would have been warned that my ship was below them.”) as well as a portrait of Anne Frank. The combination of art historical, socio-political and medial aspects in Bachman and Banz’s work leaves room for complex interpretations.

Also an archivist of impressions of daily life, is Patricia Bucher (*1976, lives in Zürich). She collects odd personal encounters, strange images from journals or, as in this exhibition, text fragments from pop songs. Seemingly carefree and without huge aspirations, using highlighter on paper, Bucher draws texts like "some will have more cash than you / always take a different view” or "and if i don’t and if i do / the day has cooled, the time will too”. Finally, Bucher covers her work with scotch tape, rendering it not only object-like but also giving it the appearance of permanence.

Dagmar Heppner (*1977, lives in Basle), draws using pencil and colored pencil, logos of the big Hollywood studios such as Universal, Columbia or Paramount – super brands which create reality through fiction. But whereas the original brands burst with vigor, Heppners drawings seem vulnerable and almost caressing. They are not in confrontation with the power Hollywood exerts over our dreams, but instead a new, gentle reinterpretation of the logos.

image: Patricia Bucher, 2004

Vernissage: Mittwoch, 10. November, 17.00 till 20.00

Staub(g*fzk!)
Rotwandstrasse 39 (Holf) Zurich

stampa

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