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5/12/2014

Two Exhibitions

Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig

Wilfredo Prieto
The view of the garden of Helene Hollasndt

In his objects and installations Wilfredo Prieto plays with contrasts in such a poetic manner that he seems to both exaggerate and abolish them at the very same moment. Wilfredo Prieto shapes simple materials with which we are familiar from everyday life and stages them so that they make an extraor-dinary and noble impression – without, however, forfeiting their realistic character. On the contrary: by leaving the sugar cube a sugar cube (Two Classics, 2011) and plastic wrap, plastic wrap (The More You Add, the Less You See, 2011) the artist reveals the aesthetic potential of these materials. Wilfredo Prieto deploys the principles of Minimalism without following them blindly. It is a more fundamental influence from Donald Judd, Carl Andre, et al., that manifests on the formal level of Prieto's works. The artist furthermore aims at a shift in perception by broadening the associative space around ob-jects, materials and their common applications.

With the exhibition title The View of the Garden of Helene Hollandt, Wilfredo Prieto indicates the rela-tionship between the interior and exterior spaces as well as the original significance of the Villa Salve Hospes as a residence. He suggests a narrative layer that is animated primarily by the absence of per-sons. The piece Nude (2008), in which the remnant of a disrobing scene can be found on the floor as a nearly cinematic sequence, could hence be interpreted as a scene that brings the viewer into contact with the 'Helene' of the title. In the early 19th century Braunschweig merchant D. W. Krause had the architect Peter Joseph Krahe build the Villa Salve Hospes for his adopted daughter Helene Hollandt, who, together with her family, subsequently inhabited this house with its view of the lavish garden known as 'Hollandt's Garden'. An openness to narrative in much of Wilfredo Prieto's work supple-ments the levels of meaning that exist in his objects and installations with art-historical and socio-political references that add a further perspective.

Wilfredo Prieto (born 1978 in Zaza del Medio, Province of Santi Spiritu, Cuba) lives in Havana, where he studied at the Instituto Superior de Arte. He was awarded the 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Grant for New York and has already participated in numerous international exhibitions, such as the Havana Bi-ennial (2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012), the Singapore Biennale (2006) and the Venice Biennale (2007). The Kunsthalle Lissabon dedicated a solo exhibition to his works in (2011) and S.M.A.K. in Ghent pre-sented a retrospective in the summer of 2014. The View of the Garden of Helene Hollandt at the Kun-stverein Braunschweig is Wilfredo Prieto's first solo show in Germany.

Along with copious illustrations and comprehensive essays, the catalogue Wilfredo Prieto: Works 1995–2012 features a conversation between the artist and Thibaut Verhoeven. The English/Spanish publica-tion was produced in collaboration with S.M.A.K., Ghent; the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana; and the Kunstverein Braunschweig.

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Florian Auer
with Seth Pick
You're live

Telstar, the football developed by Adidas with black and white dots on a white ground, was first used during a television broadcast of the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico. Because of its better visibility on black-and-white television, it established itself as the standard design for footballs. The fact that mass-media principles for the coverage of (sporting) events have a lasting influence not only on the tele-vised image but also on human perception is at the heart of Florian Auer's installation You're Live in the Remise at the Kunstverein Braunschweig. Examining the spectacle-oriented live broadcast of football matches from the perspective of Land Art, Auer constructed an exhibition architecture that plays with its own visions, revisions and supervisions.

The principle 'not just on the sidelines but in the very thick of it', which has characterised televised sports broadcasts for close to two decades, feigns interaction with the viewer. As they become ever more perfected through advances in digital technology, television broadcasts increasingly distance themselves from the objects they transmit: the broadcasted event still references an actually occur-ring reality, but now also generates something almost hyperreal. In keeping with this principle, Auer conceived new expansive works for the Braunschweig exhibition. Using the relationship between physical reality and its live transmission as a starting point for the examination of contemporary sculp-tural and painterly strategies and their potential, he employs imitation and exaggeration to create an anti-relational exhibition space that merely suggests the possibility of participation. Utilising the 1960s' idea of 'negative' sculpture, equally accessible and decisively characterised by its external perception, he makes his works oscillate between the second and third dimensions. The sculptural and object-like – placed in a space-defining picture plane – are consequentially 'levelled'. Also integrated into the exhibition are paintings by Seth Pick (born 1985 in Reading, lives and works in Frankfurt am Main), made especially for the exhibition at Auer's invitation and the first abstract compositions by the artist, who otherwise devotes himself to dream-like figurative subjects.

Florian Auer (born 1984 in Augsburg, lives in Berlin) studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich as well as at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main under Prof. Tobias Rehberger. He has had solo exhibitions at S.M.A.K. in Ghent (2013), Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler in Berlin (2012, 2014) and NAK – Neuer Aachener Kunstverein in Aachen (2012). His works have also been presented in group exhibiti-ons, for example at the Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster (2014), Lothringer 13_Laden in Munich (2013), the Museum für Moderne Kunst, MMK Zollamt in Frankfurt am Main and CCA, Andtrax (2012).

The exhibition is supported by: Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony

Press Contact:
Gergana Todorova, info@kunstverein-bs.de

Opening: 5 December 2014

Kunstverein Braunschweig
Opening Hours:
Tue-Sun 11 am - 5 pm / Thu 11
am - 8 pm / Mondays closed

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