The Good, the Bad...
dal 11/1/2002 al 23/2/2002
Segnalato da
11/1/2002
The Good, the Bad...
Galerie Wieland, Berlin
... And the Ugly. An exhibition of work by Canadian artist Neil Farber and American artist David Rathman. This show marks the first time work by either artist has been seen in Berlin. Both Farber and Rathman are astute draftsmen who make drawings that depict figures and situations in clearly theatrical or cinematic terms. Often captioning or providing indications of dialogue to their scenes, these two very distinct artists share an abiding black shade of humor, as well as a keen understanding of the narrative ambiguities of drawing.
...And the Ugly
Neil Farber | David Rathman
Galerie Wieland is pleased to present an exhibition of work by Canadian artist Neil Farber and American artist David Rathman. This show marks the first time work
by either artist has been seen in Berlin. Both Farber and Rathman are astute draftsmen who make drawings that depict figures and situations in clearly theatrical or
cinematic terms. Often captioning or providing indications of dialogue to their scenes, these two very distinct artists share an abiding black shade of humor, as well as
a keen understanding of the narrative ambiguities of drawing.
The 25-year old Neil Farber lives and works in Winnipeg, Canada, and is an alumnus of the Royal Art Lodge, an art collective that includes such like-minded artists
as Marcel Dzama, Jon Pylypchuk, and Drue Langlois. Farber is a prolific draftsman who works through stacks of paper making pristine pen and colored ink
drawings that have the deceptively innocent look of naïve children’s book illustrations. His drawings, hung salon-style in dense groupings, are tangentially-related
variations on his favorite themes, which often include childhood, death, fear, danger, authority, and a sort of happy sadness. His rudimentary scenes are often
populated with either morose children or grown-ups (or sometimes both), and may also include vampires, suspicious cats with see-through mechanical abdomens,
bottles of poison, dangerously gaping holes in the ground, and numerous cryptic references to hell. Throughout, Farber’s deadpan wit and lack of sentimentality
keeps his enterprise on a steady course between naivete and despair.
As a Montana native, David Rathman has a pronounced, if ambivalent, affection for the mythical Old West. His stark ink drawings are sparsely populated by the
cowboys, drunkards, gunslingers, and prairie maids of popular legend. He culls his images from old movie Westerns, mixed and matched with crudely handwritten
snippets of found movie dialogue which also serve as disjunctive captions. Stylistically following in the footsteps of Raymond Pettibon, Rathman’s vignettes
ingeniously recycle the cliches of American myth with equal measures of black humor and parched desperation. The high contrast of the leathery, sepia-toned ink on
a ground of bright white paper suggests dark deeds committed in the bleaching glare of the Western sun. Likewise, Rathman makes use of the dramatic silhouette, a
cinematic device closely associated with the Western (just remember John Wayne’s craggy figure pausing in a cabin doorway in The Searchers and you’ll have a
good idea of Rathman’s mise-en-scène.) While his lonesome cowpokes and hotheaded desperados are graced with a telling detail here or there—the glint of a
cartridge belt, the crease in a ten-gallon hat-they remain skillfully-articulated ink blots, cutout figures just right for a bleak two-dimensional shadow play. They need
not be any more elaborate'we know these characters so well already' and in Rathman’s cultural and gestural shorthand, the Old West is revealed as Beckett or
Goya might have envisioned it: stunted and grotesque, laughable and grimly unyielding.
(James Trainor)
With support from the Candian Embassy
opening reception: January 12, 2002, 7 - 9 p.m.
gallery hours: Wed - Fri 2pm - 7pm, Sat 12 - 5pm
galerie wieland
ackerstr. 5
10115 berlin
fon: +49-30-28 38 57 51
fax: +49-30-28 38 57 52