News - Galleri Nils Stærk

Matthew Ronay participates in a group exhibition at ACC (Asia Culture Center), Gwangju, South Korea

Matthew Ronay will participate in a group exhibition at ACC (Asia Culture Center) in Gwangju, South Korea with his work 'In and out and in and out, again' (2013).

The exhibition is based on material-driven craft techniques and will present an original context from a new perspective of modern sculpture after the 1990s while also focusing on traditional raw materials.

The exhibition will run from 04/09-19 - 24/02-20

COMMISSIONS

Carlos Amorales - BAMPHA, US has commissioned the work Ghost Demonstration by Carlos Amorales for their Art Wall

In this new commission for the BAMPFA Art Wall, entitled Ghost Demonstration, Amorales draws from the multiple histories of mural art in Mexico, the political demonstrations that occurred in Berkeley in the 1960s (as well as more recent events), and protests in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. In order to make this monumental mural, the artist used stencils of slogans from Berkeley protest posters as well as fragments from songs by British anarcho-punk bands from the eighties who disavowed Thatcher-era neoliberal policies. These stencils were held up by assistants, whose silhouetted figures are imprinted along the wall. The ghostly outlines of the human figure point to historically significant moments in various times and diverse cultures, while reinforcing the importance of remaining socially and politically engaged in the present, as many of the slogans resonate with the current cultural climate.

Born and raised in Mexico City, where he now lives and works, Carlos Amorales studied in Amsterdam for many years and has had numerous residencies across Europe and the United States. As a result of this broad international experience, his interests bridge multiple cultural spheres, and the artist often seeks to interweave aspects of these disparate realms of influence while also highlighting their distinctive vocabularies. Indeed, language and the challenges of communication are abiding interests in his work. Often utilizing sounds, gestures, or symbols, Amorales points to the potential for art to embody new forms of transmission. He works with diverse media—ranging from animation, video, and drawing to large-scale installation and performance—to explore the complex terrain extending between image, sign, and cognition. The act of translation is often at the root of Amorales’s work: musical instruments can transform into animate characters, human figures become ghostly silhouettes, and narratives reassemble into unintelligible actions.

COMMISSIONS

Superflex - Dive In at Desert X as part of the project Deep Sea Minding, CA, US

SUPERFLEX is participating in the Desert X biennale 2019 edition with the site-specific film installation Dive-In. Opening on February 9th and running until 21st April 2019 in the Coachella valley in Southern California.

Dive-In is an architectural installation functiong as a drive-in cinema while awaiting to become infrastructure for fish. The pink cinema will project scenes of marine life interacting with the same coral-like structures.
Dive-In is the first large scale artistic result of the ongoing three-year research project Deep Sea Minding, lead by SUPERFLEX and commisioned by TBA21 Academy.

Read more about Desert X: https://www.desertx.org

COMMISSIONS

Superflex - Galeries Lafayette, Paris, FR has commissioned the work 'Aprés Vous, Le Déluge'

SUPERFLEX at Galeries Lafayette. Après Vous, Le Déluge is an art installation by SUPERFLEX made specifically for the new building of Galeries Lafayette in Champs Elysées, Paris.

The work consists of an sculptural blue dashed line fixed on the walls of the building’s atrium. While constructed with solid and tangible sculptures, the discontinued line becomes an indicator of an invisible yet probable limit: the estimated height of sea level rise within the next century as a consequence of climate change. The suggested height has been established according to the predictions of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The location of the sculptures in the atrium of Galeries Lafayette has a direct impact on the work’s meaning and interpretation. Firstly, the geographic location of the work is significant: it is located in the French capital, host of the 2015 international climate conference where the Paris Agreement was signed with the unprecedented support of 196 states. On the other hand, the work re-contextualises and destabilises the familiar and pleasant space of the department store by inciting a discussion of climate discussion. In this way, Après Vous, Le Déluge provides visitors with an abstract but visual representation of what might happen to their immediate environment in case the worse climate change projections finally materialise. It is an invitation to consider the palpable consequences of climate change to our everyday lives, presenting an image of water readily seeping into the well-known scenarios of our quotidian reality.

The title Après Vous, Le Déluge paraphrases the quote of King of France Louis XV: «Après moi, le déluge» while playing with its multiple interpretations. On one hand, an abstract prophetic claim of chaos; on the other, a statement of indifference. The phrase also points at our individual and collective behaviours, and the way we can impact change.

With Après Vous, Le Déluge, SUPERFLEX passes on a message coming directly from the Ocean. By physically showing the likely adverse consequences of our collective conduct, the artwork emphasises that we have no choice but to radically transform the way we live together.

GROUP SHOWS

Michael Kvium - Walking Through Walls, Martin-Groupius-Bau, Berlin, DE

Michael Kvium will be included in the group exhibition Durch Mauern Gehen/Walking Through Walls opening at Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin on 11.09.2019. Walking Through Walls marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the most symbolic events of the 20th century, interrogating the experience of vulnerability and anxiety caused by power structures that thrive on confinement and segregation.

Not too long ago, the fall of the Wall was one of the most salient symbols of twentieth-century utopianism. More recently, however, the surge in extreme nationalism and polarising populism have given way to more divisive ideologies. Walking Through Walls is, therefore, a timely response to the current moment whereby the Berlin Wall is extended beyond its German particularity, becoming instead an entry point into critical reflection on the impact of having to live with divisions, both real and metaphorical.

The exhibition brings together 28 international artists and covers a wide variety of media including painting, sculpture, photography, film, sound installation, site-specific interventions and performance. It is conceived as one comprehensive, non-linear experience, constructed around three interwoven lines of inquiry. The first brings together works that explore the physical presence of walls and how they function as sites of separation. The second reflects on the impact that physical and metaphorical walls have on those who live with them. The third portrays the struggles to overcome existing divisions. In addition, the exhibition directly references the historically charged location of the Gropius Bau. Many symbolic sites are in its direct vicinity, or even visible from the exhibition galleries themselves, including a fragment of the Berlin Wall.

With works by Marina Abramović and Ulay, José Bechara, Sibylle Bergemann, Tagreed Darghouth, Jose Dávila, Willie Doherty, Smadar Dreyfus, Melvin Edwards, Dara Friedman, Dora García, Zahrah Al Ghamdi, Mona Hatoum, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Michael Kvium, Gustav Metzger, Reem Al Nasser, Christian Odzuck, Emeka Ogboh, Anri Sala, Fred Sandback, Aki Sasamoto, Regina Silveira, Siska, Javier Téllez, Samson Young, Yuan Yuan, Héctor Zamora

SOLO SHOWS

Eduardo Terrazas - Cosmos at Museo Experimental El Eco, Mexico City, MX

Eduardo Terrazas 'Cosmos' at Museo Experimental El Eco in Mexico City. 'In the COSMOS of Eduardo Terrazas several times coexist simultaneously: the westernized and the non-westernized; the fast and the slow; the relationship with the environment and the relationship with oneself. COSMOS is one of several series in which the artist has been working for decades (others are more recent) and who manifest a clear interest in operating from a logic that is based on permanent inquiry, without closure, insisting on fundamental issues within the universe' - Museo Experimental El Eco.⠀⠀⁠⠀

GROUP SHOWS

Runo Lagomarsino - The Warmth Of Other Suns, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC, US

Runo Lagomarsino participates in the group exhibition The Warmth Of Other Suns at The Phillips Collection, Washinton DC, US. Looking at his work Mare Nostrum, the neon text changes between spelling out “MARE NOSTRUM” and “MARE MOSTRUM”. Mare Nostrum implies unreconciled memories; it signifies a reciprocal fear, dating back over half a millennium, that has witnessed attempts at pacification of an entirely political and rarely cultural nature. This fear is also marked, however, by great reciprocal curiosity, a voluntary and necessary quest to find shared ground. And so in speaking of the Mediterranean, how could one help but think of Braudel and his concept of it as a locus of proximity, a concept that has also bolstered the idea of an ever smaller place, a true borderland between two worlds, which have come to be multiple worlds.

This D.C. exhibition should be seen by everyone concerned about the migrant crisis.—The Washington Post

The Warmth of Other Suns: Stories of Global Displacement presents 75 historical and contemporary artists—from the United States as well as Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, Syria, Turkey, UK, Vietnam, and more—whose work poses urgent questions around the experiences and perceptions of migration and the current global refugee crisis.

Through installations, videos, paintings, and documentary images, The Warmth of Other Suns explores both real and imaginary geographies, reconstructing personal and collective tales of migration. Overlaying historical experiences of migration to and within the United States with the current plight of refugees around the world, the exhibition brings together a multitude of voices and exposes the universality of migration as an experience shared by many. The exhibition also focuses on how artists bear witness to both historical events and more subtle shifts in cultural landscapes.

Borrowing a line from author Richard Wright (1908–1960), and sharing its title with Isabel Wilkerson’s award-winning book on the Great Migration, The Warmth of Other Suns is anchored by an important reference to the decades-long exodus of over six million African Americans from the brutality and discrimination that ruled the American South. Selections from Jacob Lawrence’s powerful Migration Series (1940-41), a cornerstone of The Phillips Collection, will be among the historical works featured in the show.

The Warmth of Other Suns is curated by Massimiliano Gioni and Natalie Bell in partnership with the New Museum, New York, and based on the exhibition The Restless Earth, which was shown at the Triennale in Milan in 2017.

AWARDS

Miriam Bäckström - Ars Fennica 2019, FI

Miriam Bäckström participates in Ars Fennica 2019, Finland. "Bäckström consistently aims for technical precision and innovation, regardless of whether she works with still or moving images. At the same time, she has opened her practice to collaborations that allow for the improvisational and the theatrical. These might be films, live performances or published texts, in which boundaries between the documentary and the fictional, as well as between the original and the appropriated, are speculative transgressed.⁠⠀
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Bäckström’s hybrid, experimental practice exploits and subverts the conventions of visualising and story-telling, stagecraft and exhibition-making. Throughout her oeuvre, she has tested conflicting approaches to authorship and subjectivity, performance and spectatorship, the public and the private, fact and fiction. She is always looking for a new image, a new experience, a new emotion – so new that no one will quite know how to perceive and respond to them." - Ars Fennica, 2019. ⁠⠀

The exhibition ends 08.09.19.

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Photo credit: Jussi Tiainen ⁠⠀