Chloe Piene
dal 1/11/2007 al 21/12/2007
Segnalato da
1/11/2007
Chloe Piene
Galerie Barbara Thumm (old location), Berlin
Solo show. Among the works in the exhibition is a series of small-scale charcoal drawings focussing on self-portraits and the female nude. In relentless and expressive depiction, the artist approximates the image of the female body, often her own. In the intense cinematic images of her video works, elementary human experiences of threat, fear, revulsion and confusion take disturbing shape.
Solo show
An artist portrait of Chloe Piene is published in the current issue of
Monopol magazine (November 2007).
We take great pleasure in presenting new works by Chloe Piene in her first
solo exhibition at Galerie Barbara Thumm. Drawing and video are the media
primarily employed by this New York artist. On paper, Chloe Piene reveals
the existential experience of the female body and female sexuality in rapid,
feverish lines. In the intense cinematic images of her video works,
elementary human experiences of threat, fear, revulsion and confusion take
disturbing shape.
Among the works in the exhibition is a series of small-scale charcoal
drawings focussing on self-portraits and the female nude. In relentless and
expressive depiction, the artist approximates the image of the female body,
often her own. Strokes of charcoal now linear and pointed, now wide and
soft, close in on the anatomical details. The skull is a recurring motif,
particularly in the self-portraits with child. Somewhere at the core of
these drawings is the depiction of the Virgin Mary, but that element
contrasts sharply with the radical rendition of nakedness and the presence
of death calling to mind the motif of the pietà.
The standing, crouching or lying nudes radiate great sensuality and at the
same time a quality of morbid eroticism. The kiss of Death, the head of a
doe on a naked body, legs spread apart, the searching hand on the breast,
for that matter the general prominence of hands, large and central, in the
images all speak of ecstatic desire and immediate corporeality. Like the
rapidly executed linear courses, the bodies are characterized by incessant
motion, incessant search. Sometimes fine, sometimes forceful, the
tissue-like structure of the drawings often results in strong layering
reminiscent of the effects of multiple illumination. Entire sequences of
motion are thus frozen into a single instant. Elsewhere, everything is
strongly abstracted and appears in a state of transition, dissolution. With
every stroke, Chloe Piene releases strata of ecstatic experience as a means
of approximating the authentic image of the body. The latter oscillates in
her drawings between beauty, desire and transience: death. The body becomes
a landscape of the soul.
If in the works on paper Chloe Piene employs the element of perspectival
distortion, in her videos works lasting only a few minutes each the
slowing down of both the tone and the progression of frames is a prevalent
stylistic device. Stummfilm (Silent Film) is far from being independent of
sound. In a decelerated, deep, animalistic voice, a women screams into the
darkness of the forest. The association is with the myth of the werewolf
which in this case female transforms under certain circumstances into a
bloodthirsty beast. Dwarf, in which a person of small stature acts out an
apparently absurd performance of climbing stairs and falling down on the
landing, is dominated by strong chiaroscuro contrasts. The events double and
are bizarrely distorted by the shadows cast on the wall. The imagery of this
work is clearly indebted to the genre of the classical horror film.
Chloe Piene¹s video works defy any recountable story line. What we see are
fragments of extreme physical and mental states. We learn nothing of the
causes. That which is shown allies itself with that which remains concealed;
from the latter emanates a diffuse sense of peril. The great intensity of
corporeal experience, reminiscent of Body Art performances, joins the
immediacy in the depiction of emotions in what is virtually an attack on the
spectator, an unexpected confrontation with the challenges of the
sub-conscious. (Text: Angelika Richter)
Private view: Friday, 2. November, 7-9pm
Galerie Barbara Thumm
Dircksenstrasse 41 - Berlin
Free admission