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16/4/2009

Speculations on the End of Interieur

Vera Cortes Art Agency, Lisboa

a project curated by Susanne Prinz

Artists: Antonia Low, Nairy Baghramian, Paolo Chiasera, Riccardo Previdi, Shannon Bool, Ulf Alminde

Not long ago, hardly anyone was interested in those periods of art that were minted by holistic principles and
impregnated by utopian ideas as almost all modernist movements up to the 1960s were. Then, particularly in
design and architecture, forms and materials more often than not spoke a megalomaniac language of an all
encompassing approach to anything from small details in human life to mega-cities. As we know the generally
rather optimistic outlook soon became disreputable simply by being used or misused by various political –isms
and the increasingly inhospitable and unsocial reality of our (sub-)urban lives. How much questions of design
today have regained importance and are considered to have progressive potential is demonstrated by the ideas
evolving around the reconstruction of New Orleans. Here design is obviously considered as a vade mecum for the
complete political, economical, and ecological catastrophe that followed the destruction of the city by hurricane
Catrina.

The long lasting historic deficit of legitimacy in design and architecture has done a lot for the concentration on the
aesthetics of the single object and has in fact fetishized it. In the wake of this development all things designed and
modernistic became objects of desire. Nevertheless they still hold promises of sociality or at least of utility. Here
lies one reason behind the rekindled interest of a whole generation of young artists in the related fields of
architecture and design. While searching for relevance that extends beyond their proper genre they dissect the
extremely symbolic language of these objects of desire. For many the simple fact that design objects are fetishes
that not only turn them into collectables but also carry a message of good taste and an elevated lifestyle is
another point of interest. It mirrors the fate of an artwork in consumerist societies where artworks are increasingly
rendered into products while products became icons.

Unlike the wide spread routine of quoting highly desirable design directly in one’s own production the artists in this
show prefer to relate on an associative level to the canon of good taste.

Shannon Bool’s sculpture, which takes the stripper pole as a point of departure, employs materials typical of the
Art Deco period (brass and nickel) not to address issues of sex explicitly, but as reference to period whose
decadence and freedom was followed by a period of sexual repression and frustrated desire.

As with most of her works, A Perpendicular Expression of a Horizontal Desire is the result of an experimental
process – one in which narrative content and sculptural materials merge. The decorative or ornamental elements
integrated into the images accompanying the sculpture serve to develop the narrative potential even further,
drawing analogies between various levels of reality and disrupting the viewer’s perception of space. Applying an
ancient floor mosaic pattern to the photograph portrait of a lascivious beauty, the work also alludes psychological,
social and aesthetic concerns, demonstrating Bool’s characteristic use of flatness as a constructed space
hovering between perspective and ornament – a quality traceable in many of her other projects as well.

Paolo Chiasera works in a very diverse array of media. His multifarious practice moves from painting to
installation and through to performances constructed around historical figures with a personal relevance to the
artist. Though his figures are often well-known hero personalities, more often than not, his characters have an
undeniably radical, rebellious streak. In one such example, viewers are given a rapid-fire account of one such
hero’s creative output: 3 Variationen on Enzo Mari amalgamates 30 years of design history into a single,
compressed sculpture, merging three of the renowned Italian designer’s most famous creations into a single
object. In doing so, the artist succeeds in addressing not only questions of form but also the problem of the art
object as fetish and consumer good in a humorous, light way.

Antonia Low’s fantastical, frenzied light bulb installations are most convincingly described within the vocabulary
of classical enlightenment, as they bring its notions of the sublime into a contemporary framework. As Edmund
Burke writes in his famed essay A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Idea of the Sublime and the
Beautiful (1757), sublime objects should be "... vast in their dimension..." and "rugged and negligent". While small,
highly polished objects are considered merely beautiful, the sublime always carries with it a whiff of danger
without ever becoming a real threat. Somehow, Low’s room-filling, ominously wired, meandering electrical
trappings seem to fit the bill perfectly.

For Riccardo Previdi, the exhibited series of ‘fans’ is in many ways par for the course. Just as many of this
young Italian artist’s works take up the ideas of classical modernism and apply them to forms of applied art, in
these new sculptures, he manages to develop moments of history and carry classical modernism’s interest in
primary colours over to the present. He does this by juxtaposing the images of famous post- and pre war
modernist sites in Berlin with an image of the very same space they occupy now. The result is a transformed
image on an object that hovers uncomfortably between categories, something between picture, sculpture, and
theatre prop.

In a similar way, Nairy Baghramian also mobilizes the grammar of classical modernist forms, calling to mind the
aspirations originally associated with them. In doing so, she places form and gestalt in the context of a critical
discussion about the social and cultural implications of society’s ongoing project to create an extensive, all-
encompassing design out of every aspect of our lives. Devotee – a grouping of stool-like sculptures bearing a
seat shell shaped like the concave imprint of a human derriere – is arranged in a typical mise-en-scène that
seems to lend the objects personalities of their own. In fact, you could say they were downright chatterboxes,
speaking of their relation to every diverse aspect of design from furniture to theatre and even fashion. At the same
time, the materials Baghramian uses tell a story of their own – one that includes the entire history of their original
use.

The work of artist Ulf Alminde addresses the social implications of interior design. His films are based on the
performative acts that develop in the area of conflict between the frame set by the artist, along with the dynamics
evolving during the improvised performances of his protagonists. In Welcome Home, spontaneously-recruited
customers at an IKEA store re-enact scenes from famous films in IKEA’s familiar showroom interiors. Panning
slowly with his camera, Alminde casts an intense look at human conditioning while managing to avoid the
trappings of voyeurism.

Opening reception 17th April, 10 p.m.

Vera Cortês, Art Agency
Av. 24 De Julho, 54 1200-868 Lisbon
Tuesday through Friday from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Saturday from 3:00 to 8:00 p.m.

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