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28/5/2009

Erna Hecey Gallery invited by Temporary Gallery

Temporary Gallery, Koln

Erna Hecey Gallery is delighted to present a series of works by Eleanor Antin, Marcel Broodthaers, Peter Friedl, and Ryan Gander, specially invited to this occasion. Their respectiv work can be experienced as a focal point inside which various lines of through intersect a multilayered system of meanings and interpretations, creating a large corpus that deals with the logic of critic and potentialities of narration.

Some artists more than others have inspired various generations of artists to develop work involving similar key issues. These influences are visible throught parallels, similar strategies or appropriation. In the case of Marcel Broodthaers, these issues are the fiction, the medium, the anti-théorie, the language, the critique of the institution, the role of the artist, among others. Today, this often ironic play, between art and non-art, words and significations, fiction and reality can largely be found in contemporary artistic production. There has been also an increased interest in categories which were very central to Broodthaers's work : system and fictitious system of order (such as the museum, the archive, the collection or the book, the text and the letter).

The slide works are essential in the understanding of Broodthaers's work. It is an extension of the language. Its provides him with the potential for narrative, poetic structure in which text images and objects can be confronted with and associated to each other. It is a "système de lecture" and it formalises his aversion to repetition. ABC ABC-images (1974) shows this supremacie of the language. Broodthaers turns his projection into a critic game in which one is able to experience both power and stupidity of language. It is also a response to the conceptualization of art, in which the linguistic definition of art becomes the actual work of art. With the simultaneous projection Broodthaers tries to set in space abstract units of time : change, interval, repetition, concurrence. Such as ABC ABC images, Les Mystères de Buffalo Bill (1974) have been showed in various displays of exhibtions (the« décors »). These images refer to the shadow play and the magic lanterne, (forerunner of the modern slide projector) and they constitute forms of spectacle. The Signatures (1971) are a reference to the museum's power to confirm the status of the work of art is matched only by the signature of the artist as well as to the commercial value of the work of art. The "Série de neuf tableaux en langue allemande, Die Welt » (1973) consist of 9 pieces on which are written names and dates of German philosophers (« Die Welt von Marx") and the one of Beethoven.

Peter Friedl's art practice deals with issues such as political awareness, the displacement, the narration, potential counter imagery and reinvention of the genres from the history of modernism. By introducing narration, he creates instruments of perception and throught that insists on a complex, yet prolific evolution of ideology and forms of artistic expression. Chronology, alphabetical order or chromatical correspondences bring new forms of narration. His works materializes in photography, painting, video and film, sculpture, installation, texts or book projects. Theory of Justice is a collection « in progress » of documents from newspapers and magazines initiated by Peter Friedl since 1992. The title clearly relates to the goal of renewing the notion of social justice as proposed by the liberal ideology of the american philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) in « Theory of Justice » 1971. The photographs (2006-2008) showed here have been taken from the originals. This serie questions the notions of originality and historicity. In showing these images of consumption regularly enable to postpone relatively their necessary disappearance.

Badly Organized (2003) seems to be a critic about the nature of the work itself, as well as a comment on the institution. Friedl's work is based on a precise understanding of the specificity of the context of the institution may be to much oriented toward the logic of the spectacular. The irregular letters of the neon mimic Herbert Marcuse's writing. The title correspond to the term "badly organized" used by an american editor against the Theodor W. Adorno project of translation of the text Philosophie der neuen Musik from German to English language. This influence the signification of the work toward a more open geopolitical issue. Untitled (Berlin) (1996-2007) is a poster, based on a photography taken in 1996. It shows a slogan written as a graffitti. The message refers to the German artworld shift between Berlin to Cologne.

As a conceptual artist, Eleanor Antin creates narrative images through a myriad of medium such as photography, video, film, performance and installation. Her works show a particular orientation to the fiction that belongs to conceptuel art, especially in the West coast of the United-States, where revindication, protestation or subversion, found a favorable environment. Her narrativ strategies are often comic parodies with ironic connotations of cultural, political or sexual clichés. 100 Boots is the most famous conceptual work by Eleanore Antin. It consist of 51 postcards sent to 100 recipients trough the world from 1971 to 1973. These documents look like film stills each of them part of a long narration which start on the Pacific coast and end in New York. 100 Boots took the status of art work with its presentation at MoMA in 1973. The work is an important stage in Post-modern art which associates romantism to politic. She was one of the first artists, with this work (a both popular and critic sucess) to use mailing as a medium, by diverting the traditional distribution system of the art world. 100 Boots is turn to the experimental nature of the narration. In 2002 she shot her 100 boots behind Magritte's famous work "La trahison des images" (This is not 100 boots)

Collections of facts and fictive stories are combined in Ryan Gander's work through various medias (sculpture, installation, lecture, printed word). These medias are interconnected by a non linear and opaque narration that exists in his entire work. The pieces are minimal, while they suggest various points of references to the Utopian of the early 20th century as well as to the popular culture and everyday life. What the Postman Brought (2007) is one of the most typical and complex work by Ryan Gander. It is a "subversion of museum display standards". The work consist of 4 elements, 3 of which are missing. The last one works as a legend, giving to the public some clues about what represent the other parts. The viewer is asked to study the elements, to complete space between objects and forming his own relationship with them. The narration is often linked to social organizations and their relationship with the human condition. There is a Duck in a duck of a duck and another duck behind a duck. How many duck are there? (G) 2008 is the last declension of a series of 7 works, the letter G. The whole serie plays on Wittgenstein philosophical visual trick that uses an image of a rabbit and when turned in a certain direction it can appear to be a duck. The title of each work reads as a riddle, but a multitude of answers are possible.

Temporary Gallery
Mauritiuswall, 35 - Koln
Free admission

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