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24/5/2013

Sanya Kantarovsky

GAK Gesellschaft fur Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen

„You expected something.
You expected something else perhaps.
(...)
In any case, you expected something.
It may be the case you expected what you are hearing now.
But even in that case you expected something different.“
Peter Handke, Offending the Audience
Characteristic for the paintings of Sanya Kantarovsky is a juxtaposition of abstract and concrete elements and their vivid interaction. A canvas that seems to combine purely abstract forms upon first sight, for example, can turn out to depict a drawn curtain or an arm, rendered visible by the addition of a single, inconspicuous painted hand. The abstract arrangement of two simple, intersecting lines might equally be perceived as windows and doors. Within the artist’s work, figuration and abstraction are at once present and absent as elements of mutual dependence and interrogation. The representational parts are reminiscent of disparate sources: items painted in the elegance of Fred Astaire or in the tradition of the famous illustrations of New Yorker magazine stand alongside others recalling political visual propaganda from the 1930s Soviet era or illustrations from children’s books. The subtle melancholic humor of a Franz Kafka informs the atmosphere of these images, complemented by a light touch and gentle use of color. Often enough his works confront the vagaries of the creative process or perception itself: individuals sit before an empty screen, gaze upon a blank image or abashedly grasp their heads at the sight of a white rectangular form.

Kantarovsky’s canvases are multilayered organisms that eliminate the difference between the concrete and abstract, high and low, the decorative and the politically engaged, through their precise juxtaposition. At first sight, they seem seductively accessible, but closer inspection reveals that his works subtly invalidate such terms of classification. Kantarovsky maintains this openness in his occasional role as curator and his tireless interrogation of the architectural situations within which his work is presented.

The new series of paintings for You are Not an Evening shows a state of the before, the afterwards, the behind and the in-between rather than depicting the actual incident: individuals are shown departing the scene, with their backs turned to the viewer or even all but gone from view. Figures stare in fascination at something that lies beyond the bounds of our perception. Elsewhere, abstract forms encroach upon the image’s narrative like dark clouds... Pursuing the strategies that underpin Peter Handke‘s play Publikumsbeschimpfung (“Offending the Audience”), the exhibition concept emphasizes the absent and the subversion of classical terms of reference in art. You are Not an Evening elucidates the title of this presentation, while titles such as There are no Intervals Here and You Expected Objects illuminate the paintings’ subscription to the premise of subverting the very expectations that their deceptively straightforward appearance might evoke in the viewer.

For his canvases, Sanya Kantarovsky develops a situation in the GAK, where a blue glass plate serves as a filter for perception and a linear sculpture opens a space within the space. Another structure, a hybrid of autonomous sculpture and exhibition display, interacts with the specifics of the institutional architecture, brings to mind the process of perception of the viewer by forced movement and enacts the exhibition as a play.

Sanya Kantarovsky was born 1982 in Moscow and lives in New York. He studied fine arts at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, and the University of Los Angeles. He has exhibited at Lax>
For further inquiries please contact:
Yvonne Bialek, presse@gak-bremen.de, T. +49 (0)421 500897

Press conference: Monday, 27 May, 11 a.m.

Opening: Saturday, 25 May, 7 p.m. (Long Night of the Museums)

GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst
Teerhof 21 - D-28199 Bremen
OPENING HOURS
Tuesday to Sunday 11 - 18, Thu to 21
ADMISSION
Normal: 3 - Euro
Family: 6, - Euro
Reduced: 2 - Euro (students, seniors and artists, the unemployed, and the members of the BBK Gedok)

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