translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
221110: Galerie Krinzinger Erik Van Lieshout – Real Luxury
Galerie Krinzinger
Erik Van Lieshout – Real Luxury
18.10.10 until 04.12.10
Koons’ Nightmare
If artists try themselves in other professions it can really go wrong. For three months Erik van Lieshout opened a shop in a mall in Rotterdam. After he already failed with his first idea: the strategy to rent himself out – as a handyman. People simply didn’t understand what he was attempting, he said. Therefore he decided to switch to selling goods, parts of which are currently displayed in the Gallery Krinzinger. The reconstructed shop looks like it was destroyed by hooligans and not at all like a well thought-out shop: screws, nuts, tools, pots filled with soil, plywood shelves and all kinds of other things created a chaos. Before entering one encounters the mounted message in capital letters stating that anti-consumerism is true luxury – definitely not the best advertising slogan.
Van Lieshout took his consumer-rebellion to the extreme. The reconstruction of his economically dysfunctional shop is accompanied by remarkably dismal drawings conveying the goings-on in a shopping centre - where everything seems out of control, although nothing spectacular is happening. The oversized hands of Valkyries are manicured in a nail studio; massive figures are sitting around on benches apparently waiting for something that will definitely not happen; the artist portraits himself with a totally blackened head, as if he was a victim of terrorism. Between these scenarios he positioned a poster with the trashy slogan “autonoom”, reminding of broken signs of neglected used-car shops.
With rather gloomy snapshots, Erik Van Lieshout demonstrates the smoothness of flashy shopping worlds. A nightmarish antithesis to Koon-, Hirst- or Murakami-like works. His downright destruction of consumer temple culture is refreshing in comparison to the at times hardly bearable commercialisation of everyday life – despite its slightly traditional aesthetics.
By Nina Schedlmayer
Galerie Krinzinger
1010 Vienna, Seilerstätte 16
Tel: 0043 1 513 30 06
Fax: 0043 1 513 30 0633
email: krinzinger@galerie-krinzinger.at
http://www.kunstnet.at/krinzinger
Opening hours: Tue – Fri 11 a.m. – 6 p.m., Sat 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
221110
Galerie Krinzinger
1010 Wien, Seilerstätte 16
Tel: +43 1 513 30 06, Fax: +43 1 513 30 06 33
Email: krinzinger@galerie-krinzinger.at
http://www.galerie-krinzinger.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr 12-18, Sa 11-14 h
Galerie Krinzinger
1010 Wien, Seilerstätte 16
Tel: +43 1 513 30 06, Fax: +43 1 513 30 06 33
Email: krinzinger@galerie-krinzinger.at
http://www.galerie-krinzinger.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr 12-18, Sa 11-14 h