Monica Ursina Jager
dal 26/5/2011 al 24/6/2011
Segnalato da
26/5/2011
Monica Ursina Jager
Christinger De Mayo, Zurich
Certitude of Speculative Thought. Jager is juxtaposing drawings to an evocative installation which is based on the famous construction of Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983).
"They speak of a new way to live yet build individual cages as in the past. ... if hundred and sixty people reside in one building, is that new? Does it relate to a revolutionary way of life?"
Letter to the editor from the magazine SA (Magazine for revolutionary, constructivist architecture), Moscow, 1927
In John Brunner's visionary and groundbreaking science-fiction novel "Stand on Zanzibar" is all of Manhattan enclosed by the Buckminster-Fuller-Dome. The book which was published in 1968 was influential on a whole generation of young authors with its confusing mixture of dystopian and utopian elements. The overpopulation - the key subject of the book - and all its subsequent problems are not to solved by mankind despite the technological progress. The storyline jumps between Manhattan and Africa and Brunner uses architectural descriptions to emphasize the decay of solidarity, the individualisation in the First and the utopian (yet in the end fruitless) rear up in the Third World.
In "Certitude of Speculative Thought", her first solo exhibition at Christinger De Mayo, Monica Ursina Jäger is juxtaposing drawings to an evocative installation which is based on the famous construction of Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983). The architectural elements not only permeate the gallery space but seem to grow through it which gives them something oddly organic. Similar to the graphic novel "Das Fieber des Stadtplaners" by Schuiten/Peeters in which an exponentially growing cube perforates a whole city - to transform it as well as to expose its innermost essence - are Jäger's sculptural installation mirroring the invisible layers of the graphic capriccios on the wall. The deconstruction and new configuration of the different architectures, the utopian Soviet draft or a simple tree house and there realisation in non-landscapes strike a chord with us and unsettle us at the same time.
Monica Ursina Jäger:
Born 1974 in Thalwil/Zurich. Master of Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College, London. Different solo and group exhibitions such as Kunstmuseum Thun, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Haus für Kunst Uri, Galerie Anita Beckers Frankfurt, Kunstmuseum Chur, Sammlung Essl Klosterneuburg/Wien. Winner of Swiss Art Award 2007. Monica Ursina Jäger lives and works in London and Zurich.
IMage: Monica Ursina Jäger: untitled, 2011
Ink on paper, 72 x 114 cm
Opening: 27 May 2011 - 18:00
Christinger De Mayo
Ankerstrasse 24 8004 Zurich
Opening Hours: Wed-Fri noon - 6 pm, Sat 11 am - 5 pm, and by appointment
Admission free