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30/1/2009

Two solo shows

Yvon Lambert, Paris

Lawrence Weiner

Paris is pleased to announce its eight solo show of American artist Lawrence Weiner since their first collaboration in 1970. The one who has been long recognized as a central figure among the founders of Conceptual Art will present new works, specially developed for this exhibition titled ½ EMPTY – ½ FULL.

For almost four decades, Weiner has worked on the nature of language as a whole, which led him to investigate many linguistic and visual structures. As a result, his artistic productions take multiple shapes including books, films, videos, performances and audio works. In recent years, the American artist (born 1942, South Bronx, New York), has been regarded as one of the most leading artists worldwide. By considering language as a material object which can be confused with many linguistic medium, Weiner has come to offer an ambitious redefinition of the relationship between the artist and the viewer. As Weiner’s works are mostly created for specific places, what he presents to the public’s eye is often new and exclusive. It is important to the artist to transgress conventional boundaries of language, which is why his art pieces should adapt to the culture in question. From then on, they are not only shown in English but also in the language of the country. As a pure sculptural material and not as a formal medium of communication, language turns out to be universally intelligible. This radical approach appears to be fully coherent with Weiner’s 1968 Statement of Intent:

1. THE ARTIST MAY CONSTRUCT THE WORK
2. THE WORK MAY BE FABRICATED
3. THE WORK NEED NOT BE BUILT

EACH BEING EQUAL AND CONSISTENT WITH THE INTENT OF THE ARTIST, THE DECISION AS TO CONDITION RESTS WITH THE RECEIVER UPON THE OCCASION OF RECEIVERSHIP.

Such a declaration permitted Lawrence Weiner to free himself from material formalism and gave his art unlimited ways to exist.

Lawrence Weiner gained international attention with important solo exhibitions including WITH THE PASSAGE OF TIME, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1990); DISPLACEMENT, DIA Center for the Arts (1991-2); QUELQUES CHOSES, Musée d’Art Contemporarin, Bordeaux (1992); CHAINS WRAPPED AROUND ONE THING & ANOTHER BROKEN ONE BY ONE WITH THE PASSAGE OF TIME, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1992), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1994), Philadelphia Museum of Art (1994); AFTER ALL, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2000); AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE, Cologne Kunstverein (2000); BENT AND BROKEN SHAFTS OF LIGHT, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2000-1); and INHERENT IN THE RHUMB LINE at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (2007). Weiner’s work can be found in major collections worldwide including the Guggenheim and MOMA, New York; MOCA, Los Angeles; Tate Collection, London and Centre Pompidou, Paris.

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Jill Magid

I was repeatedly told by my sources that I have their faces and that’s why I am dangerous. To burn them was the only power I could wield.

Yvon Lambert is pleased to announce “The Thicker The Glass,” Jill Magid’s first solo exhibition at the gallery’s Paris space. In “The Thicker the Glass”, Magid explores the nature of government secrecy and obligatory silence through her work with the Dutch secret service. Under compulsion to commission a public artwork for a new building, the AIVD—the General Intelligence and Security Service of the Netherlands, or the Dutch Intelligence Agency— decided to use it as an opportunity to improve their public image. In 2005, Magid was selected by the AIVD to “provide the AIVD with a human face.”

After being formally vetted, Magid was given unprecedented permission to interview agents within the organization. Over the course of three years, these conversations took place in nondescript public places—hotel bars and cafes, lounges and airport meeting points—and were meticulously recorded by Magid in handwritten notebooks. (I Can Burn Your Face, the neon series in this exhibition, is lifted directly from them.) By collecting agents’ personal data, Magid hoped to sketch the “face” of the organization. The resultant work, Article 12, was exhibited last spring in The Hague. Magid continued to explore the emotional, philosophical, and legal conflicts between “protective” institutions and individual identity in an unpublished manuscript detailing her experience with the organization and its agents. Magid meticulously recorded her exchanges and impressions in diary form. Before the opening in The Hague, Magid gave the agency a copy of her working manuscript to redact. Unfortunately, the AIVD did not like what they read. They confiscated a number of pieces after the show had already opened, and returned to Magid, via a representative from the Dutch Embassy in Washington, D.C, a heavily redacted version of the text she had offered them.

Magid’s multimedia installation for Yvon Lambert highlights the legal and ethical issues of presenting work focused on an organization mired in secrecy. In The 18 Spies, eighteen letterpress prints (seven have been confiscated by the AIVD) describe the eighteen agents with whom she met. On the floor, six spies burn in red neon light (three have been turned off, due to the AIVD's confiscation of the prints that define them). To ‘burn’ a face is a term, used by the AIVD, meaning to expose an agent’s identity. In the gallery window near the bookstore is the redacted manuscript, and the series The Kosinski Quotes, nine quotes from the novel Cockpit by Polish-born writer Jerzy Kosinski, the protagonist of which is a former operative of a mysterious government agency living a life free of identity—in a way, describing Magid’s personal methodology. Jill Magid was born in Bridgeport, CT in 1973. She received her Master of Science in Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge and was an artist-inresidence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam from 2000-2. Magid has had solo shows in various institutions around the world including Tate Liverpool (2004), the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (2005), Gagosian Gallery, New York (2007), Sparwasser, Berlin (2007), the Centre D’Arte Santa Monica, Barcelona (2007), and Stroom, Netherlands (2008). Jill Magid lives and works in New York.

Image: Jill Magid

Opening reception on January 31st

Yvon Lambert
108 rue vieille du Temple - Paris
Free admission

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