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English summaries March 10 - 24
Hayward Gallery
Martin Creed – What’s the point of it?
29.01.2014 – 27.04.2014
By Daniela Gregori
There are, apparently, some people who are notoriously indecisive. They stand helplessly in front of the wardrobe, the order just given in the restaurant is completely wrong and will have to be amended. The possibility of being able to choose turns into a state of mental overload. Rather take everything. Or perhaps not? Would half-half be possible?
Martin Creed has turned these options into a working principle in all available possibilities – in terms of media and materials and also in the dimension in which they can be used. In a room in the exhibition in London's Hayward Gallery, 39 metronomes tick at 39 different paces, there are felt-pen drawings in the entire colour spectrum of the writing materials, as well as 1000 broccoli prints printed with complete strokes which were available, from time to time in a room, a museum attendant hits every note on a piano, and then there is stillness.
To do something by a half and not a half would give him the feeling of doing it correctly, says the artist who was awarded the Turner Prize in 2001 with the work "Nr. 227 - The lights going on and off": a "Yes and No" would have been preferable to a "Yes or No" , and above all, conceptual art would not have been such an affair because he was unable to separate ideas from feelings. Creed's system of order simply follows the size, it's piled up, layered and towered, each “on” is followed by an “off”, every up a down and back again, also if it – as in the case of the projection of an erect penis going through the mechanisms of rising and falling – appears contrary to nature. Considering the diversity of these oeuvre, the conceptual rejection appears just as coquette as the question in the title of the exhibition "What's the point of it?"
Right at the beginning of the exhibition, Creed seems to have hit the nail on the head. Just as in earlier times when it was all about whether one was tall enough to have a carnival ride, the height of a visitor to the exhibition was checked. If the measurement was right, he could pass, if he is too tall, he'll be stopped and told to use another entrance. Quite right, because in the first room, a steel girder rotates menacingly-to-dangerously overhead. On it, in 2 meter-high letters, the word MOTHERS is displayed. The English have also learnt their Freud.
Hayward Gallery
SE1 8XX London, Belvedere Road
www.southbankcentre.co.uk/venues/hayward-gallery
Opening hours: Mon 12-18, Tues, Wed, Sat, Sun 10-18, Thurs, Fri 10-20 hours
Galerie Hubert Winter
Helga Philipp
07.03.2014 - 03.05.2013
By Margareta Sandhofer
In the 60's, Helga Philipp (1939-2002) was counted amongst the avantgarde of the concrete and constructive as well as the kinetic artists. Today, she is frequently associated with the term of Op Art, which, albeit, is far too often banalized as effective dalliance with optical phenomena, which, for Helga Philipp's work would be a completely insufficient classification.
Back then, Helga Philipp was an active pioneer of the then new kinds of materials or innovative usages, such as cling film and screen printing on glass and plexiglass. As the Hubert Winter Gallery now presents in the selective cross-selection of works from the 60's and 70's, she concentrates on basic shapes such as the square, the oblong and the circle and, based on the reiteration and variation of this module, developed a stringent, immanent picture regularity.
In the eight-part series of drawings (1978), a line band with various folds develops a spacious effect and appears to stretch horizontally over the edge of the pages. In "Kinetic Object" (1966-68), a dynamic creates itself already in the cumulative, perspective contortion of a single, repetitive square on the plexiglass plate, which is then blended as a second level into the mirror image, which lies behind it. In "Kinetic Object" (1971), she multiplies the strategy with rings in several layers and a mirrored background into which, additionally, the observer can see him/herself in the story.
With the changing of the perspective by the observer, the tectonic austerity of the structure is loosened. The individual picture elements free themselves from their precise, geometric framework through their movement and take on a life of their own – in order to latch on to a new connection. Static and dynamic of the space's diversity are dependent on the reception. Thus, the observer is prompted to change his position constantly.
The topicality of Helga Philipp's work lies in the amalgamation of reality and virtuality in the determination of awareness of space and time by means of the interference between object and observer. The eye is at first irritated, the observer gradually fascinated and experiences every marginal movement of his location as a small, sensual sensation.
Galerie Hubert Winter
1070 Vienna, Breite Gasse 17
Tel: +43 1 524 09 76
Fax: +43 1 524 09 76 9
E-mail: office@galeriewinter.at
www.galeriewinter.at
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 11 – 18 hours, Sat 11 – 13 hours
Galerie Andreas Huber
Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor – 46°19´41´´N 23°12´44´´E Geamăna
14.03.2014 – 10.05.2014
Susanne Rohringer
In a darkened main room of the gallery, the two artists, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor present a film about the Romanian mining area of Rosia Montana, where copper has been mined since the 70's. Gold was also discovered here in pre-Roman times. Today's copper mining takes the form of flooding the area, whereby copper mixes with chalk and is separated by water. If one looks at the 8 mm and 16 mm films of both artists, one gets the impression of apocalyptic scenery in which the stream of colours alternate with one another. A brown mixture of sandy colour flows into a red stream of colour. In between, bright "white water" flows out of a pump. The film view of this desolate area, devoid of people, paints a picture of destruction. The slowly flowing / moving pictures are accompanied by a reading of the "Secret Revelation According To John" and texts by Salvador Allende. These texts can only be comprehended by people who understand Romanian. For other recipients, this non-comprehension emphasizes the disconcerting character of the portrayed limbo even more strongly.
The two artists, who have named the exhibition after the geographic co-ordinates of the mining area – 46°19´41´´N 23°12´44´´E – try to portray the insanity of this destructive project in comparison to all the colourful beauty. Originally, the copper mining started in a small area. The greed for more drove the business forward so that the people in Valea Sesil and Geamana had to leave their villages and move. Sometimes the remains of a wooden fence or a roof construction jut out of the water. The destruction of the villages progresses relentlessly and the mining area eats into the land. Vătămanu and Tudor have succeeded in documenting and interpreting the ambivalence of this destructive project in a very graceful way.
In a bright room in the gallery, pieces of scaffolding lie on the floor. They are covered by sheeting and appear to have pieces of earth on them. Even if the intention is otherwise, the discovery of the mass graves in the Balkans (i.e. Srebrenica) come to ones mind. The scaffolding looks like stretchers on the floor, carrying the last remnants of humanity. In creating this work, the artists had a dream of another artist before their eyes.
The two artists tell a story which concerns experiences and events of the communist and post-communist time. Through this, they substantiate a feeling for collective breakpoints and places of remembrance and, in their own way, make these speak.
Galerie Andreas Huber
1040 Vienna, Schleifmuehlgasse 6-8
Tel: +43-1-586 02 37
Fax: +43-1-586 02 37
E-mail: art@galerieandreashuber.at/a>
www.galerieandreashuber.at
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 11-18, Sat 11-15 hours
Galerie Peithner-Lichtenfels
Jan Maarten Voskuil – Broken Colours
28.02.2014 – 19.04.2014
By Wolfgang Pichler
The works by Jan Maarten Voskuil, currently presented at GPL Contemporary, fascinate by extending the (by definition) flat canvas into three-dimensionality without any additions. The canvases give the impression of an abstract relief. This results in the beauty of these precisely balanced compositions. It only becomes clear after taking a glimpse at the reverse side of the works that the stretcher frames were accordingly formed and are not curved.
The strongest effect - which is solely defined by light and shadow - is achieved in objects such as “Broken White III” (2014). Here the focus is increasingly geared to the play with light and surface structure of the elegantly curved canvas by omitting any form of painting. Equally remarkable, but much more playful, are the round versions of the “Pointless” series, designed in dazzling colours. In contrast, the glistening silver-coloured works titled “Broken Chrome II” prove that even minimalistic art can have a certain glam factor. However, here the shadow play of the deformed surface, which is otherwise such an essential quality of the paintings, fails to exert its strength.
Nevertheless, the exhibition is well worth seeing.
Galerie Peithner-Lichtenfels
1010 Vienna, Sonnenfelsgasse 6
Tel: +43 1 236 9 236
Fax: +43 1 236 9 236 9
email: galerie@peithner-lichtenfels.at
www.peithner-lichtenfels.at
Opening hours: Tue – Fri 10-18 hours, Sat 10-16 hours
Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville
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