The Fall
dal 28/5/2008 al 11/7/2008
Segnalato da
28/5/2008
The Fall
Bloomberg Space, London
An extensive series of newly commissioned "Obliteration Paintings" by Stefan Bruggemann in response to signature volcanic eruption paintings by the internationally renowned painter Dr Atl: a seminal figure in Mexican art and political life. Throughout the exhibition Bruggemann seeks to establish links between vision and blindness, sound and silence.
Bloomberg SPACE presents an extensive series of newly commissioned ‘Obliteration Paintings’ by Stefan Bruggemann, one of Mexico’s foremost contemporary artists, in response to signature volcanic eruption paintings by the internationally renowned painter Dr Atl. Celebrated as the father of the Mexican Muralists, Dr Atl is a seminal figure in Mexican art and political life. Highly esteemed as a public and political figure, an artist and a novelist, Atl’s strongly held views about the structure and future of Mexican society continue to have a strong resonance today.
Throughout the exhibition Bruggemann seeks to establish links between vision and blindness, sound and silence, what is shown and what is not shown. In the main gallery Dr Atl’s large, intensely coloured landscapes with volcanoes, filled with sublime tension and energy, will be hung on a central wall, flanked on all sides by a new series of Bruggemann’s ‘Obliteration Paintings’. These works commissioned specially for Bloomberg SPACE and created in situ vary in size and are strung around the gallery spaces – a direct result of the Dr Atl landscapes they encircle.
This play between the potential nature of the landscapes and the actual nature of the abstract works is extended in the use of a recording of cult rock band The Fall played on multiple flat screens in the second space. There are strong links with the band in terms of the energy and threat embodied and more obviously the title of the exhibition takes this notion of literal and metaphorical fall as its central issue. The live recording depicts The Fall performing a song titled Blindness. However, at Bloomberg SPACE Bruggemann presents Blindness, a song full of barely contained energy, played mute creating a powerful relationship between energy, obliteration and the silence (or blindness) it implies.
The Fall – Stefan Bruggemann and Dr Atl brings work by a famous historical artist to this country for the first time, but places it in a current and yet exceptional context. By creating a very contemporary back to front relation to expectation, Bruggemann succeeds in making a sensitive, physical and yet questioning relation to paint, and invites an assessment of the dynamics between conceptual art, expressive means and active social engagement.
Stefan Bruggemann is represented in the UK by Blow de la Barra.
Opening thursday 29th may h 6.30-8.30pm
Bloomberg Space
50 Finsbury Square EC2A 1HD London
Monday to Saturday 11am – 6pm
First Thursdays 5 June and 3 July till 9pm