Three exhibitions
dal 27/11/2009 al 12/2/2010
Segnalato da
27/11/2009
Three exhibitions
Swiss Institute - Old location, New York
Latifa Echakhch uses her own identity and experience to question pre-conceived ideas about nationality, religion, and history. The exhibition's title 'Movement and Complication' borrows terms from horology. Grrrr(alias Ingo Giezendanner) seeks inspiration from urban space, obsessively documenting his location in detailed drawings, animations, and public murals. Ooga Booga is a concept shop vital to the creative life-blood of LA. It gathers an eclectic range of products: one finds rare zines by Frances Stark next to furry animals of Mike Kelley. Spearheaded by Wendy Yao, Ooga Booga fosters a vibrant community of independent creative producers.
Latifa Echakhch: Movement and Complication
Latifa Echakhch uses her own identity and experience to question pre-conceived ideas about nationality, religion, and history. Intellectually challenging, but at once sensual, the artist’s work explores society in an increasingly globalized world.
In her first institutional solo exhibition in the United States, Latifa Echakhch presents a new body of work. The site-specific installation Plaintes (complaints) is inspired by The Modulor, a system of measurements developed by Swiss architect Le Corbusier. Echakhch applies the architect’s measures to eight charcoal wall drawings, which create an obscure pattern throughout the gallery. In addition, she displays small wooden brainteasers on pedestals. On a formal level they allude to the bag of tricks of modernism. The piece is consequently entitled HLM, after the subsidized housing complexes in the French banlieue. Furthermore, the large windows on Broadway are painted in a bright yellow, based on the substance Gaya (E102), a food coloring used as an inexpensive substitute for saffron in Asian cooking.
The exhibition’s title Movement and Complication borrows terms from horology. In this field, a movement indicates a simple watch. The term complication, however, refers to any feature beyond the basic display of hours, minutes, and seconds. The more complications (e.g. a moon calendar), the more difficult it is to design, create, assemble, and eventually repair the watch. Latifa Echakhch applies those terms to question urbanism, related theories and eventually social movement and complication.
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Lobby
Grrrr....
Grrrr(alias Ingo Giezendanner) seeks inspiration from urban space, obsessively documenting his location in detailed drawings, animations, and public murals. Encompassing the foyer of the gallery, Grrrr reacts to New York and re-imagines the city’s vistas.
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Reading Room - Ooga Booga
Ooga Booga is a concept shop vital to the creative life-blood of LA. It gathers an eclectic range of products: one finds rare zines by Frances Stark next to furry animals of Mike Kelley. Spearheaded by Wendy Yao, Ooga Booga fosters a vibrant community of independent creative producers.
Image: Latifa Echakhch, Globus (b), 2007. Courtesy the artist and Kamel Mennour, Paris.
For additional information please contact Piper Marshall, Assistant Curator
tel (212) 925 2035 x 13 piper@swissinstitute.net
Opening Reception: Sunday, November 29: 3 - 6 PM
Swiss Institute
495 Broadway / 3rd Floor, New York
Tuesday through Saturday: 12 - 6 pm
Wednesday until 9 pm
FREE entry