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4/12/2008

Phantacalifragilistigexpialidocious

Galerie Adler, Frankfurt

Artists Anonymous - Gordon Cheung - Peter Feiler - Sebastian Gögel - Sigga Björg Sigurdarðóttir

The juxtaposition of fantasy and reality grants access to the problems associated with comprehension, which emerge when unusual things, situations or events are exposed, particularly when they are rated as “unrealistic”. Mary Poppins, the nanny possessing magical powers, finally experiences an imaginative adventure, which is claimed to have never happened. The compounded title is thus considered as the quintessence of an imaginary power, which prescribes the ability to produce internal images and thereby, an inner world.

Today, every style which combines reality with phantasmagoria and mysticism is categorized as surrealistic. In this respect, the unreal also engulfs an equally anticipated realistic character similar to everyday reality, which itself often appears surreal or absurd. Through advertising and mass media, surrealistic images and dream-like worlds have found their way into the everyday. This forms one of many cornerstones pursued by the artist group Artists Anonymous. Their positive and negative world of imagery is dominated by figures which partially seem to arise from a fantasy, yet also engross comic figures or emblems found in mass culture, concurrently questioning their function.

Gordon Cheung likewise creates various worlds of imagery, which, through its utopian and/or dystopian power, places observers under its spell. In front of the work’s background, the stock exchange columns of the financial times, Cheung even captures old-testimonial themes such as the cycle of genesis. Iconographical-known illustrations such as the creation of light or the fall of the angels allow the impressive influence of religion to be assumed and produce a direct relation to the overbearing power of the financial world.

The epical scope of Peter Feiler’s open narrative style, which from individual fragments and pieces spins into a confusing web of the most diverse contexts, likewise permits paintings of his universes to be developed. Congruent to the surrealistic style, which percolates beyond reality, is his penetration of the fictitious, the paradisiacal, and the depths of the unconscious. To a certain extent, Feiler attempts to further reality globally, and to turn over every applicable value.

In contrast, the motives which are found in mythology or in never-never land, and which are are aligned to mannerism, are characteristic of imaginary realism. Through the disassociation or combination of impossible things and conditions, reality is surpassed. An equally dim world is evident to the observer of Sebastian Gögel’s work, which is inhabited by hermaphrodites, who are caught between humans and animals, and every other known and unknown evolutionary intermediary phase. The view points turn reality on its flipside: Internal worlds have been turned to the outside. Through the fairy-tale like, almost infantile charm brought forth in Sebastian Gögel’s works, the young artist constructs every form of indication of a universal truth, which is to be tangibly rather than genuinely embraced, yet nontheless less understood.

In addition, miraculousness permits the emergence of wonderful events, sequences, and figures to a level of reality, inhabited, for example, by magical characters. Sigga Björg Sigurdardottir, has likewise created a hidden mirrored-world, in which creatures with drooling mouths and hairy arms exist. The belief in goblins, trolls, and fairies, which set curses and hoax on humans in the forests, is deep-rooted in Icelandic mythology, and reflected instinctively in her art-making.

The phantacalifragilisticexpialidocious power of the imagination can not only be perceived in the fairytale world of animations, but also in the various forms mediated by contemporary mythical art. Commercial products found in advertising, scenes of the world’s end, monstrous or fairy-like compositions, and confusing global systems are in the end, often as potentially absurd as the repercussions of the financial crisis.

In the subZONE the Italian artist Valerio Rocco Orlando will show one of his early video works, "Celeste", the first chapter from "The Sentimental Glance" cycle. A consideration about the world of childhood and fantasy which keep on living inside of us, in our memories and in our everyday life.

Opening cocktail: Friday, December 5th, from 6 - 10 pm

Galerie Adler
Hanauer Landstrasse - Frankfurt
Free admission

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