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22/3/2015

Supernova

Studiocur/Art, Milano

Studiocur/Art is pleased to announce the opening of the group exhibition Supernova in Milan. Curated by Karina El Hélou, the show is comprised of four artists: Basma Alsharif, Sarah Francis, Simon Lewandowski, and Raed Yassin.

A void results from an explosion. In astrophysics, the phenomena of a black hole is explained as a void left by an explosion of stars called a supernova. Voids we experience in life, or senses of nothingness, have a relationship with our cosmos—most importantly through time measure. Time is abstract and has a relative dimension; there is no beginning and no end. Running time leaves us helpless without the ability to go backwards or forwards, except for our memories. In our mind, what was real and what was not gets mixed. What happened and didn't becomes irrelevant, what stays is the feeling of absence. The perception of time is relative to each: nostalgic reminiscence, existential living or obsessive planning of the future become mechanisms we develop as defense systems.

How can we fill the void left by the missing person, relationship, country and friend? Images, videos, texts and letters feed the nostalgia-building myths—stories we tell others and ourselves. In Raed Yassin's video Disco, the Lebanese artist remembers his lost father, imagining him as an Egyptian pop star. Basma Alsharif's The Story of Milk and Honey depicts an immigrant recalling the country and family he left behind through a letter and vanishing faces from a photo album.

In Sarah Francis's existential video Nawal's rituals, produced by Ashkal Alwan, present time is suspended by a couple we do not see but hear. The film captures, in a snapshot, the absent relationship between a man and a woman, where the only thing they shared was the time passing in the calm but heavy climate of Beirut. Time is stretched to become a flawless, unstoppable phenomenon with the surrounding space acting as the only fixed and immutable dimension.

Simon Lewandowski's time Setter installation includes a reversing clock, allowing time to go backwards and forwards. His research questions our need to measure and control time obsessively. Time is immaterial; an uncatchable dimension of our life which connects us to the organisms of the universe, its stars and galaxies. Perhaps the past and the future look better through the prism of our imagination. As Proust famously said, "The only paradises which exist are the ones we have lost."

Basma Alsharif (b. 1983, Kuwait) is of Palestinian origin, and her work has been shown in numerous events and film festivals internationally including Manifesta, Kassel (2010); and the Toronto International Film Festival, Toronto (2010).

Raed Yassin (b. 1979, Beirut) lives and works in Beirut. Yassin was awarded the Fidus Prize (2009), the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2012), the AFAC Grant for Production (2010), the YATF Grant for Production (2008 & 2012), and the Cultural Resource Grant for Production.

Simon Lewandowski (b. 1955, England) is an artist and lecturer in Fine Art Practice at the University of Leeds in UK. He creates objects and assembles devices with electric mechanisms.

Sarah Francis (b. 1983, Beirut) lives and works in Beirut. Her film Interferences won the students film competition at the European Film Festival. In 2011 she made her first experimental documentary film titled Birds of September, and it was shown at the DOX: LAB (CPH:DOX) film festival.

Image: Basma Alsharif, Corniche 2011, photograph

Opening: March 23, 6pm

STUDIOCUR/ART
via Ventimiglia (angolo via Privata Bobbio) 20144 Milano
Hours:
Monday–Friday 2–7pm, Saturday 3–6pm

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