Argos - Centre for Art and Media
Bruxelles
Werfstraat 13 Rue du Chantier
+32 2 2290003 FAX +32 2 2237331
WEB
Three Exhibitions
dal 30/1/2010 al 26/3/2010
From Tuesday to Saturday 12 - 19

Segnalato da

Karolin Timm-Wachter



 
calendario eventi  :: 




30/1/2010

Three Exhibitions

Argos - Centre for Art and Media, Bruxelles

Rinko Kawauchi, Ralo Mayer, James Lee Byars


comunicato stampa

RINKO KAWAUCHI
Transient Wonders, Everyday Bliss – Photography, Video & Slides 2001-2009

In her still and subdued works, Rinko Kawauchi (1972), one of the most celebrated Japanese photographers of her generation – tries to capture the brief and transient beauty of the everyday things we often overlook. Playing on such themes as the family and our interaction with the cycle of nature and life, this artist looks for wonder in details. It is astonishing that her sensitive yet forceful way of observing the world around her and of catching fleeting moments in a photo actually results in an exquisite fragility – which is also evident in her meticulously constructed compositions.
Kawauchi uses the micro-momentary as a compass and this, like surfing on a wave, has unpredictable results and as an experience is holistic. In these invariably subjectively-charged images, it is not the explicit that gains in importance, as is usual in photography, but the implicit. Kawauchi’s pictures are permeated with the Greek kairos, a unit of psychological time or subjective parenthesis that is independent of linear, chronological time and creates depth in the moment.

The exhibition at Argos is arranged around two series of slides. Cui Cui gives us an intimate glimpse into Kawauchi’s family life.

Against the supporting background tape that combines dreamy electronic soundscapes with rustling trees and chirruping birds, we see, among other things, her grandmother and grandfather in both simple daily rituals and life and death events. These pictures, taken over a period of several years, but not shown chronologically, are bathed in a wonderfully bright, whitish light. In the same way, focusing totally on the smallest and most transitory moments of the ordinary day, Utatane makes the link between the personal and the universal. The series of photos entitled 3 Years after Cui Cui, Utatane, Aib and The Eyes, the Ears are an extension of the series of slides.

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RALO MAYER
"... traveling through Biosphere 2, or: Anastylosis of Follies"

Ralo Mayer’s cross-media work derives its form from a process-oriented mode of artistic knowledge-generation. This artist’s main motifs include the investigation of narrative structures, the study of miniature universes and the interweaving of fiction and reality.
Together with the artist Philipp Haupt and others, Mayer develops polyrhythmic narrative structures in the form of scenarios, performances, strip cartoons and spatial settings in which he questions his own position as a narrator and artist (and also the position regarding copyright) and creates several model worlds into which he introduces designs for space and time. Mayer’s actual starting point is often a well-founded long-term study. This results in ensembles of works that become complex – almost unmanageable – and which the artist then channels into specific forms and modules.

The exhibition entitled ... travelling through Biosphere 2, or: Anastylosis of Follies presents two related large-scale installations that emerge from Mayer’s research into Biosphere 2. This construction, erected in the desert near the town of Oracle in Arizona and initiated by Space Biosphere Ventures, was the first large-scale closed ecosystem, the idea being to later apply this to closed space colonies.

Although a milestone in this new scientific area, the experiments were soon perceived by the media and the wide public as a failure. Inside Biosphere 2 the inhabitants had to contend successively with a shortage of oxygen and food and split into two fractions, mirrored by even severe complications in the management outside, which soon lead to the abandonment of the original ideas behind the project.

In the exhibition at Argos, Mayer interprets Biosphere 2 as a link between the utopian ideals of the 1960s and 70s and global transformation – a quest for alternative lifestyles that is still on the rise today. At the same time, the artist sees the failed project as a burlesque allegory of the attempt to get every aspect of life under control. It has resulted in experimental installations, in the literal sense of that term: ... travelling through Biosphere 2, or: Anastylosis of Follies represents an amalgam of graphic material, design, writings and thoughts, video, biological matter – plants, algae, shrimps and micro-organisms are all part of his work – and much more.

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James Lee Byars - From Life to Art and Back Again

The American visual, performance and video artist James Lee Byars (1932-1997) made an emphatic mark on the postwar avant-garde. From Life to Art and Back Again compiles three videos documenting an artist whose life and work were inseparably linked. Jef Cornelis’ film documents Byars’ exhibition at the Antwerp Wide White Space Gallery in 1969. The artist talks to Walter Van Dijck about the meaning of art and clothing, the beauty of ‘natural landscapes in an urban setting’, the role of museums, and Byars’ conception that an exhibition is the translation of his ideas. The conversation is intersected with footage of participants in Byars’ performance in the streets of Antwerp. The video essay entitled The 100 Images are in One Second, made by Byars and Continental Video, combines autobiographical material – Byars’ participation in exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Guggenheim in New York and Documenta V in Kassel, and performances of his own and by other artists, with numerous references to classical painting. Underpinned by the music of Satie, this nimbly edited work is a loose, humorous and sometimes arresting reflection on the position art occupies in life. Peter Brosens’ The Death of James Lee Byars is based on the artist’s installation/performance of the same title and also on The White Mass.

Opening Saturday 30.01.2010 // 18:00-21:00

Argos Centre for Art and Media
Werfstraat 13 rue du Chantier 1000 Brussels, Belgium
From Tuesday to Saturday 12 - 19

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dal 1/10/2015 al 19/12/2015

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