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29/9/2011

Plamen Dejanoff

Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg

In his work, the artist Plamen Dejanoff (*1970 in Sofia, lives in Vienna) often uses marketing strategies from related fields and creates desire by means of sleek and glossy surfaces and stage-setting principles borrowed from the world of consumerism. His approach to these strategies that are apparently foreign to art is a friendly one and can be tied to a lineage that includes artists like Andy Warhol—who must surely be considered the trailblazer—and Jeff Koons.

He is, in fact, closer to the latter, as far as the creation of objects and the treatment and handling of their fetishistic character is concerned. Dejanoff is among the artists who deliberately adopt consumerism, economics, media marketing and comprehensive network strategies. He uses their principles and potential to pursue his own goals, but without turning them into their opposite. Instead, his work is informed by a great trust in art, because he does not need to isolate it from other social and economic processes. It can confidently take its place in their midst.
Dejanoff’s is an art of action that tries out new ways and possibilities. Affirmative, and all the more effective, revolutions come to light in his work.

His projects are often long-term and cannot be looked at outside of the "Dejanoff System." In the last analysis, however, it is about creating sculptures that in- volve all these aspects: including the corresponding financing, publicity and support.
For many years, Dejanoff has been planning and developing “The Bronze House” for the Bulgarian city Veliko Tarnovo. In the city centre, Dejanoff has acquired a number of building sites on which he is erecting house sculptures of bronze.
They are being arduously constructed by hand in separate elements, so that since 2006 progress on the first of five planned building sculptures, which will in total cover 600 square metres, has been advancing in various stages of production and in cooperation with various exhi- bition venues.
This “Bronze House” is composed of some 4,000 elements. Each is made of bronze: doors, façade elements, floor and wall elements, as well as stairs and the junction pieces that hold the entire structure together. Each element of the “Bronze House” is hence a bronze sculpture in its own right, contributing with a multitude of other parts to form a house sculpture.

The sculptor thus orients his conception on Brancusi's “Endless Column,” which was erected in modular construction and which has long fascinated Dejanoff. Each of the five walk-in sculptures to be produced will have a different function. Ultimately, Dejanoff envisages an artists' colony like the Chinati Founda- tion initiated by Donald Judd in Marfa. Judd established his settlement on the periphery of the art world in the Texan province, where it has come to play a major role in the region.

Inner space turned outwards is symptomatic of Dejanoff’s house-sculptures – precisely because they are intended for public use. He foresees the creation of a library, a studio cinema, an exhibition space, art studios and so on. In short, it offers the infrastructure for cultural life, intended to be used. He, in fact, acts as a contemporary collec- tor, himself creating the place he has dreamed about, without waiting for someone else to do it for him. Except that his goal, besides reflecting a sculptor’s interest in building houses from an untypical materi- als, includes the dream itself, even before the fundamental function of project has emerged that would ideally suit both him and the other participants.

The Kunstverein will show more bronze-elements as well as models, drafts and objects in context of parallel installed walk-in sculpture in the HafenCity. The objects are small urban models used in the design process or a series of sculptures from crystal or bronze – the result of the artist’s experimentation with the metal.

Opening: Friday, September 30, 2011, 6 pm

Kunstverein Hamburg
Klosterwall 23 - Hamburg
Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday and Public Holidays 12 am – 6 pm
Admission:
3,- Euro / Reduced 1,50 Euro

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