Chris Larson
dal 24/10/2008 al 5/12/2008
Segnalato da
24/10/2008
Chris Larson
Magnus Muller, Berlin
The artist will present his latest video work Deep North as well as photographs created in this context. Moreover, drawings and a new huge wooden sculpture will be seen in the exhibition. He focuses on extravagant, large-scale wooden machine sculptures, which sometimes remind us of Leonardo da Vinci's machines and torture devices.
We are happy to invite you to the second solo exhibition of American artist
Chris Larson at magnus muller. The artist will present his latest video work
Deep North as well as photographs created in this context. Moreover,
drawings and a new huge wooden sculpture will be seen in the exhibition.
During the opening, we will present together with the noted European
publisher Hatje Cantz Chris Larson's first monograph titled Failure, edited
by Soenke Magnus Mueller. The book has been produced in conjunction with the
Rochester Art Center, which is currently showing the exhbition Deep North.
Chris Larson engages his imagination in different artistic disciplines,
including sculpture, photography, drawing, performance and filmmaking. He
focuses on extravagant, large-scale wooden machine sculptures, which
sometimes remind us of Leonardo da Vinci's machines and torture devices
from
the inquisition era. Resembling bizarre constructions from another
time, - they take center stage in his videos, which - enriched by elements from
mythology, magic, gospel music, farming and neurology - create a dark
romantic stage setting with sexual allusions and references to art history
(Bruegel, Fuessli, Piranesi, C. D. Friedrich, Barney), religion and
literature (Kafka). There is often a main actor, acting as a slave of
technology who operates the complex apparatus, while living through an
indefinable state of joy and pain. It is left to the viewer's
imagination to
find out what the real function of the machinery might be and which
consequences its operation may involve.
In his new 8 minutes film Deep North, Larson has expanded the number of
actors in comparison with former works. Three young women produce and
transport cylindrical ice blocks from one end of a frozen ice encased house
to the other by working a huge wooden machine. It seems as if the house had
been left in a hurry, after the colossal machine had crushed into it,
thereby creating a new Ice Age. The severity and exertion of the women,
dressed in grey felt suits, dominate the event. The machine's squeaking and
creaking, the ice cylinders' tictac as well as the clattering of the wooden
cogs form a rhythmical, spherical sound. Many elements of the film remain
mysterious: How did the ice get into the house? What is the function of the
circulary arranged ice blocks resembling an organ? What is the purpose of
the women's work? It seems that the women's main ambition is to get
over the
cold and rigor with the help of movements which produce energy. As is so
often the case with Chris Larson films, it is up to the viewers to conceive
of or else to interpret the meaning of this surreal event.
Chris Larson was born in 1966 in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he still lives
and works. Since 2008, his video County Line is part of the new location of
the surrealistic collection Scharf-Gerstenberg/New National Gallery/National
Museums of Berlin. Moreover, in 2008, his film Crush Collision, purchased by
the New National Gallery Berlin, was shown in the Art Basel section Art Film
as well as in the group show Screen Spirit_Continued #8 in the Staedtische
Galerie im Buntentor in Bremen. In 2009, the Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien in
Berlin will be organizing a Chris Larson solo show.
We would be delighted to welcome you to the opening of the show Deep North
on October 25. For additional information please contact Sonke Magnus Muller
or Constanze Korb at the gallery.
Opening: Saturday, October 25, 6pm-9pm
Magnus Muller
Weydingerstr. 10/12 - Berlin
Free admission