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25/9/2012

Mariana Castillo Deball / Jochem Hendricks

Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich

Mariana Castillo Deball
Winner of the "Zurich Art Prize" 2012

Solo exhibition on the 1st and 2nd floors at Haus Konstruktiv

Mariana Castillo Deball (born 1975) is the fifth winner of the "Zurich Art Prize", which has been presented by Museum Haus Konstruktiv together with the Zurich Insurance Group since 2007. This artist, who has attracted considerable attention internationally, studied philosophy and fine arts in Mexico City, where she was born. Today, she lives and works in Berlin and Amsterdam. In her works, this artist frequently addresses objects which belong to a specific historical and cultural context. Her approach is based on scientific methods, such as collecting, examining and selecting.

The new work which Mariana Castillo Deball is exhibiting at Museum Haus Konstruktiv is entitled "Uncomfortable Objects": a room-filling installation, historical models by mathematician Felix Klein (1849–1925), fascinating Scagliola objects and a large mural combine to form an overall presentation on two floors.

The works of Mariana Castillo Deball are based on intensive research. Historical facts and myths flow into them, so as to deconstruct traditional stories and classifications, and to liberate their content from the ideologies which are often imposed on them. This can give rise to new ways of reading.

For her research, Mariana Castillo Deball often visits institutions which preserve, organize, catalog and present objects of cultural value – institutions such as libraries, museums or archives. Here, Deball is not only interested in the traces of the past, but also in the different possible ways in which a historical object can be read today.

Her works at Museum Haus Konstruktiv are shaped and inspired by experiences and impressions which she gathered during a two-year stay in Brazil. In her installation on the first floor, curved colorful papier mâché objects with contorted, differently sized surfaces wind around a constructed metal framework, which is based on a grid structure. Papier mâché is a flexible and simple material used everywhere in Mexico, for masks, piñatas or theater costumes. With their form, the objects resemble organic plants, like epiphytes hanging in trees. These air plants are not parasites; they do not disrupt the plant on which they grow. On the paper spirals, Deball has affixed digital prints and image fragments which come from her research work in Brazil. For instance, she photographed a cave, as well as a painting by Artur Amora, one of the first concrete artists in Brazil.

The installation "Uncomfortable Objects" embodies and connects research and imagination. The visitors have all of their senses addressed; they have to read, look, reflect and perceive.

On the central wall on the second floor, a mural can be seen, with the literary title "There are no spaces in words as people speak them" (2012). This was specially created for the exhibition at Museum Haus Konstruktiv and is based on the same photographs that Mariana Castillo Deball integrated into the sculpture on the first floor. The mathematical models from the University of Göttingen's collection, which the artist places in a dialog with her Scagliola objects "Mathematical distortions" (produced in 2012 during her studio residency at the Sitterwerk in St. Gallen) are also visually depicted in the "Uncomfortable Objects" installation. Thus, Deball transforms the works assembled on the first floor, to form a new entity which tells a different story.

The "Zurich Art Prize" and the corresponding Mariana Castillo Deball exhibition honor an oeuvre which is developing on many levels, and which establishes a strong reference to space in a sensory and, at the same time, enigmatic manner.

The "Zurich Art Prize"
Museum Haus Konstruktiv believes that one of its key tasks is also to encourage the creativity of a young generation of artists who address the content of the museum with a broadened understanding. Museum Haus Konstruktiv shares this concern with its long-term partner, the Zurich Insurance Group. The "Zurich Art Prize" bears witness to the mature partnership between the Zurich Insurance Group and Museum Haus Konstruktiv, demonstrating creativity-oriented collaboration between a commercial enterprise and a museum.

Since 2007, the highly endowed "Zurich Art Prize" has been presented annually by Museum Haus Konstruktiv, together with the insurance company Zurich Financial Services Group (Zurich). It honors an independent young artist (no older than 35) who operates at the interfaces where the cultural heritage of concrete and conceptual art, on the one hand, meets contemporary trends on the other hand, and who thus enriches the field on which the content of Museum Haus Konstruktiv is focused, by adding a new facet to it. The prize reflects an important link between the history of constructivist and conceptual approaches and the continuation thereof into the present. Thus, the "Zurich Art Prize", rather than honoring history, recognizes the persuasive power of a new, unused and independent position – with art history in the background. The "Zurich Art Prize" jury was unanimously convinced by Mariana Castillo Deball's complex, seemingly mysterious and sensory installations, objects and video works.

The prize money of 80,000 CHF, donated by Zurich, is used for realization of the solo exhibition at Museum Haus Konstruktiv.

To accompany the exhibition, the Mariana Castillo Deball "Uncomfortable Objects" publication is being released by BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE, Berlin (English), CHF 38.

Acknowledgements
Main sponsor of the solo exhibition and the publication: Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich).
We would also like to thank the artEDU Foundation in Zurich, as well as the Mexican Embassy.

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Jochem Hendricks
Visionary Collection Vol. 19

Jochem Hendricks's works are spectacular, surprising and astute: this conceptual artist, born in 1959 near Frankfurt am Main, deals with different ways of life, personality structures and social mechanisms. He frequently takes our familiar desires and fears as a basis, which he then comments on critically, often with humor and not uncommonly with irony. In his works, he consciously relies on the fantasies, memories and ideas (in other words, the projections) of the observers.

This exhibition presents an overview, with works from 1984 to the present day, and is a result of cooperation between Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton (UK) and The New Art Gallery Walsall in Walsall (UK). A publication is being released jointly with the publisher DISTANZ Verlag.

Jochem Hendricks's works are playful, sensitive and, at the same time, provocative. While they are often highly captivating on an aesthetic level, their complex interrelationships subtly question the systems and references which we readily assume to be given. Artists are traditionally masters of trickery and illusion. The manner in which Hendricks deals with this tradition opens up considerable scope for interpretation. Like many other conceptual artists, he too encourages us to question our view of the world, to remain open and to develop a certain healthy irony with regard to everyday experiences.

For a series of perforated sheets entitled Concetti (2007–2009), he used brass, copper, aluminum and canvas. These works clearly refer to the famous series of slashed and pierced canvases produced from 1949 onward by Lucio Fontana, who thus addressed the pure abstraction of modernism, the flatness of the canvas and the autonomy of the art object. Hendricks has used firearms for his works and in this way he is directly questioning notions of beauty and purity, bringing the level of violence and drama into play.

Jochem Hendricks works with many different media, including sculpture, film, installation and ultimately also painting. The objects themselves, however, are incomplete without their conceived and often complex background stories. Left Defender Right Leg (2002–2005) consists of a synthetic diamond mounted on a black velvet cushion which is stuffed with tobacco. We are told that the loss of the leg was due to a smoking-related illness. We learn that the artist worked together with two former Soviet institutions informally and illegally, and that a number of middlemen were involved in each project, against a backdrop of criminality, subterfuge, social tension, political tension and ethical tension.

The dog-related work Pack (2003–2006) serves as a good example of Jochem Hendricks's artistic strategy: with him, wounds are also weapons. In his works, he attacks preconceptions. And this in turn is also applied ambiguously, because the reason why preconceptions exist is that they are confirmed sufficiently often. Thus, while on the one hand the prejudice does not disperse, on the other hand, the courage for a change of perspective is called for.

Hendricks has also tested the boundaries of ethics and legality regarding the topic of taxes. Rather ingeniously, he has created a Luxus Avatar ("Luxury Avatar", from 2009 onward), a life-size plastic replica of the artist's body, based on data from a 3D scan. The avatar is granted a luxurious existence in parallel to that of the artist; it wears designer clothing and accessories which are completely financed by tax payments.

In a series of photos and film projections entitled Crime – Terror – Riots (1973–2012), Hendricks cooperated with photographer Magdalena Kopp, who took part in international terrorism as a member of Revolutionary Cells. Kopp reprinted images which apparently come from police archives. The works are very convincing, both as documentary evidence of criminal activity and as old-fashioned photos. It would be difficult to disqualify them as an elaborate hoax.

What characterizes the works of Jochem Hendricks?
Most of Hendricks's works have something to do with perception, but a perception which refers to whether, or perhaps not, what we see, feel or think is also what we want. One essential feature is that they always pose a challenge. It is almost impossible to elude them; they do not leave you cold, neither emotionally nor intellectually. Looking at works by Hendricks usually means staying tense. The reposing gaze, enamored with the work, is something that Hendricks does not strive to get from the public at all, because the uneasiness which repeatedly sets in upon encounters with his works is one of the important keys to never remaining cool and distant.

Image: Mariana Castillo Deball, Uncomfortable Objects, 2012

Press office:
Esther Quetting T +44 2177080 e.quetting@hauskonstruktiv.ch

Opening 26 September 2012, 6pm

Museum Haus Konstruktiv
Selnaustrasse 25, 8001 Zurich
Hours:
Tue - Thur, Fri 12am to 6pm
Wed 12am to 8pm
Sat, Sun 11am to 6pm
Mon closed
Admission
Adult CHF 14.00
Reduction CHF 10.00
Children aged 7-16 CHF 5.00
under 7 free

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