Beat Streuli
dal 23/11/2006 al 12/1/2007
Segnalato da
23/11/2006
Beat Streuli
Galerie Erna Hecey, Bruxelles
Brussels 05/06. An exhibition of photographs and videos featuring the city of Brussels and its inhabitants. The series move between showing the singularity of the individual (and the uniqueness of different cities) and testifying to the endless repetition of the same in our globalized, late capitalist world.
Brussels 05/06
Erna Hecey Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of photographs and videos by
Beat Streuli featuring the city of Brussels and its inhabitants.
For more than 15 years Swiss-born Streuli has trained his camera on the modern city
dweller: chance passersby, faces in the crowd, details of hairstyle and clothing, a
fragile or stern or gregarious look. His photographic and video works examine the
denizens of various urban centers, from New York and Krakow to Tokyo and Tel Aviv,
plucking visages and gestures from the flow of street life. Though he captures his
subjects unawares, in the midst of their daily activities, it would be a mistake to
consider Streuli's metropolitan portraits as simply natural, genuine, or purely
spontaneous. On the contrary, his images have a certain recognizable look, and bear
the mark of artistic selection. His work plays on a whole series of contradictions
between the natural and the stylized, documentary and fiction, publicity and
privacy, human dignity and mass alienation, glamorized poses and the cruelty of
light.
The series move between showing the singularity of the individual (and the
uniqueness of different cities) and testifying to the endless repetition of the same
in our globalized, late capitalist world. Though often connected with that
nineteenth century cafe'-frequenting aesthete le flâneur, the 'gentleman
stroller of the streets' searching for the extraordinary in the everyday, the flash
of the eternal in the ephemeral, Streuli's art is decidedly less romantic than any
Baudelairean reverie.
Its flatness and seriality recall the aesthetics of fashion photography, a kind of
Juergen Tellerish take on city crowds, while at the same time evoking the specter of
anonymous surveillance that increasingly pervades urban space. The remarkable
regularity of Streuli's artistic practice, covering city after city, is further
reminiscent of the famous architectural studies of Bernd and Hilla Becher.
The show at Erna Hecey will feature four videos shot at the Porte de Flandre, in
front of the Tram 18 stop, showing people waiting to board public transportation.
Four large-scale photographs printed on see-through adhesive film cover the front
windows of the gallery, and a selection of photographs are displayed in the back.
The monumental window images change subtly according to the outside lighting,
creating a dynamic interplay with the surrounding architecture. Streuli's portraits
of Brussels' street life, showing people of various cultures and religions, are
inescapably political. However, their political significance resides less in any
specific message or program than in giving visibility to the street, creating a
'psychogeography' (to use an old Situationist term) of the Brussels landscape.
Solo shows (selection since 2000): 2006 Bunkier Sztuki, Krakow, Galerie Wilma
Tolksdorf, Berlin; Murray Guy, New York; Dogenhaus Galerie, Leipzig; University of
Massachusetts, University Gallery, Amherst. 2004 Jablonka Galerie, Cologne; Roberts
& Tilton, Los Angeles. 2003 Galerie Erna He'cey, Luxembourg. 2002 Palais de
Tokyo, Paris; Hauser & Wirth & Presenhuber, Zurich. 2000 Stedelijk Museum with
Gabriele Basilico, Amsterdam.
Group shows (selection since 2000): 2006 Tate Modern, London. 2005 Sharjah Biennale,
Sharjah; Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama; Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig.
2004 Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, Santiago de Compostela; Kunstmuseum,
Berne. 2003 Outlook, Athens; International Center of Photography, New York. 2002
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.; Kunstmuseum Ehrenhof, Dusseldorf. 2001 Museum of
Modern Art, San Francisco; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford.
2000 Fondation Cartier, Paris; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt a.M.;
Bruxelles 2000, Brussels; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
Opening Friday 24 November 2006 6-9 pm
Galerie Erna Hecey
rue Des Fabriques 1c - Bruxelles
Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 2-7 pm and on appointment