INTERVIEW: SANTIAGO YDANEZ

Supersized canvases, theatrical portraits, stuffed-out deers - thats how we know Santiago Ydanez’ art work. In his recent exhibition "Gracias por todo" in Berlin, however, he put his most funny paintings on display. The spanish artist can celebrate great success, but he is very much down to earth - and, against all my expectations, incredibly cheerful. He is all smiles and his laughter is contagious. Last week we spend an afternoon in his Berlin-based gallery Invaliden1, talking about his passion for animals, big and fast brushstrokes and existentialism. Click here or below to see the whole interview.

BERLIN: DAG ERIK ELGIN'S "ORIGINALS"

all images: Installation views, Dag Eric Elgin "Originals", courtesy Galerie Opdahl, photos by Eric Tschernow

Not just since last year's art forgery case concerning Wolfgang Beltracchi, the art world had to reveal its ignorance of assigning paintings to originals or fakes. Nevertheless, the myth of original artworks fascinates: their history, their relevance and of course their value. The Norwegian artist Dag Erik Elgin (*1962) immersed himself in the virtuous craft of his favourite masters and learned copying them. Cézanne's skulls, Malevich's minimalist forms, something that could be a Braque or a Picasso  - six paintings at Galerie Opdahl in Berlin create the illusion of originality, underlined by original (and extremely pricy) frames. Elgin collects frames since years: similar to his painterly method, he investigates in their history, their provenience.

The opposite gallery-wall reflects the six works in dark paint, just as in the style of Kazimir Malevich's suprematistic black square. Egin seems to accept Malevich's manifesto "From Cubism to Suprematism" at face value, when transferring it into a visual concept of his own in the gallery space. Anyway, "Originals" turns out to be a very personal exhibition: two of the paintings are not copies, but Elgin's own continuation of cubist aesthetic. 

BERLIN: "YOU KILLED ME FIRST" AT KW

   

film stills from top: 1+2 Richard Kern and Nick Zedd "The Manhattan Love Suicides: Thrust In Me", 1985; David Wojnarowicz and Phil Zwickler "Fear of Disclosure: Psycho-Social Implications of HIV Revelation", 1989; Richard Kern "Fingered", 1986; Richard Kern "X is Y", 1990; courtesy the artists

It felt like entering Berghain, or some other Techno Club, when I walked through the first hallway at KW's current exhibition "You killed me first". Black light, darkness, loud music. Kunstwerke - Institute for Contemporary Art dedicates a large show, staged on four floors only containing short films, to the Cinema of Transgression - an avantgardistic, low-budget and New York-based art movement from the 1980s and early 1990s. "Any film that doesn't shock isn't worth looking at", their manifesto claims and continues, "all values must be challenged, nothing is sacred." Nick Zedd, Richard Kern, David Wojnarowicz and the other members certainly did not respect borders and much less anything that could be sacred. Rather the opposite: Rock' n' Roll, sex, suicide, rage, rape, drugs - this show is hardcore in every sense. No surprise that it only welcomes visitors over 18 years.

AMY'S LONDON: MEANS WITHOUT ENDS

   

from top: Daniel Sturgis 'The Social Question', Ian Davenport 'Puddle Painting (Yellow Lime Green Study)', Mark Francis 'Duality', installation view (sculpture to the right by DJ Simpson 'Isovist')

In a small but elegant gallery space, in a small but elegant courtyard behind Regent’s Street is a exhibition which demonstrates, in an equally restrained way, why abstract painting – after the clamour of Pollock and the silence of Minimalism - still has big things to say. Means Without Ends (at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery until February 18th) brings together four contemporary painters, Mark Francis, Ian Davenport, DJ Simpson and Daniel Sturgis, all working within the archetypal abstract tradition which privileges line – as both form and gesture – as the expression of a vital dynamism.

COLOGNE: "BEFORE THE LAW" AT MUSEUM LUDWIG

  

from top: Pawel Althamer, Bródno People © Pawel Althamer, Courtesy Sammlung Goetz; Paul Chan, Sade for Sade's sake © Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali; Marko Lehanka, Ohne Titel (Bauerndenkmal) © Marko Lehanka; Thomas Schütte, Vater Staat © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011, Zoe Leonard, Tree © Zoe Leonard

"Before the Law" ("Vor dem Gesetz"), a title borrowed from the infamous short story by Franz Kafka, is an astonishing exhibition at Museum Ludwig, showing sculptural post-war works. Contemporary and older artists, such as Bruce Nauman, Pawel Althammer, Alberto Giacometti, Joseph Beuys and Paul Chan, are assembled to discuss the individual's role, its dignity and its power in relation to the state. "Vater Staat" by Thomas Schütte and "
untitled: staircase" by Phyllida Barlow visualize the state's and system's giantness - its force - with monumental sculptures. Other works, as for instance the untitled farmers' monument by Marko Lehanka deal with rituals, intoxicating riots or possible revolutions. An outstanding piece is the silent, several-hours-long video projection "Sade for Sade's sake" by Paul Chan. It exposes a naked and trembling society that seems to be located in a frightening dystopian time: everybody is fornicating each other, crawling on the floor, pulling and pushing each other. Humankind is transformed into an anarchistic group of animals, simply following their instincts. The piece is hypnotizing and disturbing - a nightmarish end (or a possible restart) of our society, reminding of the sentence "human dignity is inviolable".

DANIEL RAPLEY: COVENANT

For the last 18 months the british artist Daniel Rapley has been really diligent - or should I say "obsessed": he has been busy writing down the complete King James Bible on ruled paper with a ballpoint pen. 3.116.480 characters - 66 books. He made a deal with himself - a covenant - to finish the book and then show it in a staple. Therefore, his work is about trust: As a viewer, one doesn't know whether the whole staple is filled out, or whether it is only the top page. In times where guys like David Hockney criticize Damien Hirst's factory-like work production, it is a very interesting contrast to see the conventions of artistic labour. The show opens on Thursday, the 26th of January from 6-8pm.

AMY'S LONDON: DONALD JUDD DRAWINGS AT SPRÜTH MAGERS

   

Donald Judd Drawings: © Judd Foundation. Licensed by VAGA, New York/DACS, London 2012 Installation Views: Working Papers: Donald Judd Drawings, 1963 - 93, installation view, Sprüth Magers London, January 2012. © Photography Stephen White.

The exhibition of Donald Judd’s workings drawing that opened at Sprüth-Magers on Thursday continues something of a theme in the gallery’s programming of late. In a turn that has not gone unremarked, almost half of Sprüth’s London shows since last February’s (quite literally) illuminating exhibition of Anthony McCall’s ‘Works on Paper’ have featured the sketches, working drawings and documentation various of big-name artists including Joseph Kosuth, George Condo and of course Judd himself.
Whilst this current emphasis on the ephemeral might summon such metaphors as ‘scraping the barrel’ to the mind of the more cynical observer, the interest of these shows should not be dismissed outright. Working Papers brings together 33 preliminary sketches outlining the sculptural works for which Judd is best known. The most interesting of these are on headed order forms submitted by Judd to his contractors, the steel companies and metal-works that produced the objects with which he made his name.
The old question rears its head: what’s in a name? At what point does object become sculpture, producer become artist? Casual in their execution but meticulous in their conception, these order forms occupy a position paradoxically closest to the artist – bearing the unique traces of Judd’s hand and therefore an originality that is without equivalent in the finished sculptures – even as they symbolise the contractual displacement of artistic productivity away from him. Some even include a price alongside Judd’s rigorous instructions. As such, there is a certain boldness in Sprüth’s decision to shine a spotlight on those brute (and therefore troubling) technical and economic factors that underpin the creative process but are all too often concealed by it. One need only to consult David Hockney’s recent, thinly-veiled critique of Damien Hirst to know that this is a question that remains as incendiary within the artistic community as outside it.

AMY'S LONDON: PERFORMANCE ‘IN YOUR FACE’

   

all images Courtesy ShowStudio     

Aggressive; exhibitionistic; self-flagellatory. Three words vividly evoked by the performances, sculptures and images on display at "In Your Face", a new exhibition which opened last Thursday at London’s ShowStudio. The space itself is the physical component of fashion uber-photographer Nick Knight’s slick web-platform of the same name. Dedicated to the slippery genre of fashion film, showstudio.com celebrates the pageantry and peacockry of fashion at it’s performative best. Aggressive, exhibitionistic, self-flagellatory. Three words that could equally be applied to the primal drives of the fashion industry itself, and its often brutal excesses.
Centred on a contextually apt if overly facile preoccupation with the corporeal, the show’s star-studded ranks include Mapplethorpe’s heroic, photographic rendering of the male body as structural form, Leigh Bowery-esque bondage gear from fashion’s enfant terrible, Gareth Pugh, and painter Anj Smith’s darkly surreal portrait, R.F. This is a show about fetishisation, about the overwhelming objectness of the body and its perverse, almost excessive presence.



ABU DHABI ART 2012

 

from above: view to Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi Art, Keith Haring $4.5mln work at Galerie Enrico Navarra, UAE Pavillion by Sir Norman Foster 

This year’s edition of the Abu Dhabi Art has taken the event to a whole new level. The fair moved to the new premises – UAE Pavilion designed by Sir Norman Foster in Saadiyat Island. The island is the future home for planned projects such as Le Louvre Abu Dhabi and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. While both museums are still under construction, the art fair should generate excitement and establish strong link with contemporary art in the area.

Abu Dhabi Art positions itself as a boutique-sized platform for the contemporary art: fewer galleries and a reasonable size of exhibition space. It is possible to see the entire fair in an hour. Boutique also means the most prominent international art galleries that bring selections of the most popular works by their best artists. This new context had a positive effect on the fair’s programme of talks and exhibitions. This year, the visitors had a chance to encounter iconic art dealers, such as Larry Gagosian and David Zwirner. There was also a wide range of contemporary artists, from the young Algerian star Adel Abdessemed to the market leaders, such as Jeff Koons. The discussion about the position of the Middle Eastern art scene within the global art world that included Peter Sloterdijk and Salah Hassan was another pleasant surprise of this year’s public programme.

UNTITLED, ISTANBUL BIENNIAL - DARIA KIRSANOVA DRAWS HER CONCLUSION

    

On the crossroads between East and West, the Istanbul Biennial has a complex context of rich and diverse cultures, fused with troubled politics that it is meant to respond to. This year’s edition, curated by Jens Hoffmann and Adriano Pedrosa, had the desire to differ from intricate contexts that drove the curators to search for inspiration in traditional values of art, such as aesthetics. At least, this was the official claim made by Hoffmann and Pedrosa. For some mysterious reason, the Biennal found its own path and turned out to be very political. To be more precise: it was informative about the history of art activism in the second half of the 20th century. Some of the individual projects, such as Wael Shawky's film "Cabaret Crusades: The horror show file", Nazgol Ansarinia's "National Security Book Series" and Ala Younis' "Tin Soldiers" were among the most provoking participations.

INTERVIEW: RASMUS NILAUSEN

Third floor, two fire-doors and there it is: the temporary studio of Rasmus Nilausen - this summer, right in the middle of London, just across Tate Britain. The danish painter is incredibly thoughtful and charming - and he is in search of the perfect masterpiece that he is just about to make. Rasmus is not spiritual, but he loves the idea of chance transforming his work into something that he cannot control anymore. His paintings are full of curiosity and they invite into a universe of incomprehensible spaces and impossible structures. I spend an afternoon in Rasmus' treasure room, chatting about rap-music, masterpieces and diamonds. Even though he now moved back to his adopted home Barcelona, some of his paintings remained in the British capital to be exhibited in the New Contemporaries - Show at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

PHOTOMONTH EAST LONDON

From top: Phil Maxwell "Brick Lane Laundrette", Forty Years On @ Bishopsgate Institute. Until 30th November, Petra Stridfeldt "Bandage", Control @ Oxford House. Until 28th November, Simon Roberts "Ratcliffe – on- Soar Power Station"

This November sees more than 100 galleries and spaces in East London host exhibitions, talks and event as part of the Photomonth International Photography Festival. Expect a glut of shows with local outlook, such as Peter Kyte’s intimate glimpses of London explored on foot (Hoxton Furnace, until 31st December), a retrospective of the work of Phil Maxwell, whose camera has captured the ever changing places and faces of the East End over the last 20 years (The Bishopsgate Institute, until 30th November) and the unexpectedly beautiful forms of the plastic bags that float through Graham Barker’s shots of Regent’s Canal (out-of-the-loop.co.uk). There is also a global sensitivity evident in the featured exhibitions - which range from the surreal to the striking, occasionally by way of the utterly sublime - particularly in relation to the problematic notion of “home” in the kind of globalised, multicultural society that London’s East End has come to epitomise. The programme also includes a number of organised photowalks, talks, auctions and workshops

October – November, Various venues, For a full listings and a map of participating spaces, go to: www.photomonth.org