re-title.com Features

Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv

Jan Tichy
Installation no. 17, 2013
2 channel HD projection
Sheetrock, 50×50×450 cm
Inkjet print, 99×71 cm
Installation view at Hezi Cohen Gallery, Tel Aviv, 2013
 
 
JAN TICHY
Overlap
 
13 June – 20 July 2013
 
Overlap is Jan Tichy's first solo exhibition at Hezi Cohen Gallery. Tichy introduces three interconnected bodies of work, that together present the artist's unique and inquiring gaze upon the referential systems that link the private space and the public space.
 
Upon entering the gallery, the viewer steps into the darkened and recalibrated space of Installation No. 17 (2013), created for and from within the space of Hezi Cohen Gallery, and following a series of installation works in which Tichy combines video projections with the positioning of sculptural and architectural objects.
 
Tichy redefines the gallery space by manipulating the light inside, reducing it to an array of geometrical shapes dynamically sustained within the space. The gallery's interior space turns into a laboratory examining the phenomena related to the outside space: the way we are affected by the light conditions of the architectural spaces throughout the different hours of the day.
 
Further inside, the gallery space offers the viewer an encounter with the public space of the Changing Chicago (2012) series – seven video works, in which Tichy studies sites in the public space of Chicago, the city in which he has lived and worked for six years.
 
The series refers to the project of the same name, in which 33 photographers were commissioned to document the city's daily life and which was exhibited in Chicago in the late 1980s. In 2011, Tichy was commissioned by the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (MoCP) to create and curate an exhibition from their collection. In the exhibition – 1979:1-2012:21 (2012) – Tichy has chosen to display a selection of the original photographs of the Changing Chicago project, extending their interpretation through new arrangement and inclusion of his own series of video works Changing Chicago (2012).
 
Whereas the photographers of the original project focused their gazes upon the surface of the city – the people and their immediate environment – Tichy's gaze is distanced in an angle that reveals each site in its general set up, and the inhabitants' activities influenced by the light conditions which are in constant flux, capturing their encounter with architecture. Tichy's camera is static for the entire shoot, and thus it offers a dissection of the decisive moment.
 
Certificates of Authenticity (2005-12), awaiting the viewer on the upstairs level, is a series of still photographs, which Tichy has shot with his camera and collected over the years. Looking at the images one by one, introduces the light both in its traditional role of enabling the image, as well as an object of itself. The horizontal and vertical sights arising from the photographs offer a formal key, which resonates throughout all the works in the exhibition.
 
Jan Tichy (b. 1974, Prague), is an Israeli artist who lives and works in Chicago. His previous solo exhibitions include MATRIX 164, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT (2012); Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2008). His works are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, the Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall Collection, and the collections of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Tichy is the recipient of the Gottesdiener Israeli Art Prize, 2010.
 
 
Hezi Cohen Gallery
54 Wolfson Street
66042 Tel Aviv
Israel
T: +972 (0)36398788
E: info@hezicohengallery.com
 
Hezi Cohen Gallery
 
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Gladstone Gallery, New York

Tony Labat
Leisure, 2002
Weber grill and extended legs
72 x 72 x 48 inches (182.9 x 182.9 x 121.9 cm)
Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York
Photo: Dorothy Santos
 
 
MIXED MESSAGE MEDIA
Curated by Neville Wakefield
 
June 21 - August 2, 2013
New York | 24th Street
 
Gladstone Gallery is pleased to announce "Mixed Message Media," a group exhibition curated by Neville Wakefield. Featuring work by 15 artists, the exhibition explores the mutable nature of materials, highlighting the way in which even the most objective realities contain an inherent subjectivity. For this exhibition Wakefield will bring together artists from around the world, many of whom use non-traditional materials in an unexpected and unconventional manner, to create an immersive environment that investigates the ways in which materials are imbued with inherent meaning.
 
Wakefield says of the exhibition: "Just as yes is always yes and sometimes no, so the same rule applies to the materials of everyday life. Concrete is always concrete, but it is sometimes plastic too. Or, as my youngest son once remarked of Britney Spears, ‘It's not just that she's crazy, she's nuts too.' This is our reality tunnel, a term Timothy Leary first coined in his 1977 book Neuropolitique: ‘The gene-pool politics which monitor power struggles among terrestrial humanity are transcended into this info-world, i.e. seen as static, artificial charades. One is neither coercively manipulated into another's territorial reality nor forced to struggle against it with reciprocal game-playing (the usual soap opera dramatics). One simply elects, consciously, whether or not to share the others reality tunnel.' Here truth is never anywhere other than in the eye of the beholder and the medium is always the mixed message."
 
"Mixed Message Media" will feature works that represent a broad range of practices, including video, site-specific installation, painting, and sculpture. Among the works on view will be a five-part concrete sculpture by Lara Favaretto, each part of which captures a gesture meant to convey a single mood or feeling; a site-specific environment by Claudia Comte, which will include a series of sculptural works and a video; and a sculptural intervention by Renata Lucas, installed on the floor of the gallery.
 
The artists included in the exhibition are: Darren Bader, Claudia Comte, Lara Favaretto, Piero Golia, Bruno Jakob, Jirí Kovanda, Tony Labat, Renata Lucas, Dylan Lynch, Cinthia Marcelle, Dominic Nurre, Alex Perweiler, Wilfredo Prieto, Zachary Susskind, and Kaari Upson.
 
 
Gladstone Gallery
515 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
T: +1 212 206 9300
 
Gladstone Gallery
 
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Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin

Jonathan Horowitz
95 Dots, 2013
Acrylic on canvas
95 parts: 30,5 x 30,5 cm, 213 x 472 cm overall
Courtesy the artist and Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
 
 
JONATHAN HOROWITZ
Mrs. Carter and the Diet Cola for Men War
 
June 21 – August 3, 2013
 
Galerie Barbara Weiss is pleased to present Mrs. Carter and the Diet Cola for Men War, featuring new work by New York artist Jonathan Horowitz. Here, Horowitz continues his subtle and incisive analysis of the current zeitgeist, refining a number of recurrent themes in his body of work. While past conceptual video and photo-based works have focused on topics including the cultural and political implications of vegetarianism, the LGBT movement, environmental activism and the harsh, media-orchestrated division of the American political landscape, his new exhibition centers on the ambiguity of the publicly-staged rivalry between large corporations, celebrity endorsements and the shifting identity of the consumer today.
 
Horowitz's reference to the notion of the image in Pop Art is especially prominent in his Diet Cola for Men War (306 Cans), a work reminiscent of Warhol's silkscreens showing consumer products, though it also recalls the composition in Picasso's monumental war painting Guernica. 306 small canvases, each emblazoned with a can of soda, form a large mosaic of tautological market leadership. The brand rivalry between Pepsi and Coca-Cola – two companies with almost indistinguishable products – has also appeared in earlier works by Horowitz. Since the brand colors of the respective soft drinks match the visual branding for the U.S. Democratic and Republican Parties, this perceived antagonism has tangible political implications. It also becomes a broader metaphor for today's economic and politic system, one in which "enemies" are in fact best friends who share the market and propel each other forward. The cola cans in this work sport the corporations' latest marketing campaign for their calorie-free soft drinks. In this case, the hyper-masculine look of the products is explicitly geared toward men and is supposed to dispel the femininity commonly associated with dieting.
 
Given the impartial juxtaposition of both designs, Horowitz's works do not appear as anti-consumerist. Rather than follow the well-worn path of classical consumer critique, these fictionalized designs for consumer products are taken for granted as an inherent part of culture today. Consumer product marketing forms a semiotic system that we should learn to read if we are to deal with it consciously and appropriately. For Horowitz, these soda cans are an authentic reflection of a culture in which obesity has become an epidemic and gender roles are exaggerated to the point of self-caricature.
 
This attitude toward consumer products as cultural artifacts becomes even more evident in the second body of work exhibited in the show, where American pop star Beyoncé – under her newest moniker "Mrs. Carter" – takes center stage. The singer was named the spokesperson for Pepsi at the start of 2013. In juxtaposing Pepsi cans with the outlines of Beyoncé's face and Coca-Cola cans displaying a family of polar bears, Horowitz alludes to the racial subtext of these designs and marketing campaigns: While the polar bear is informed by a cultural anxiety (white people's fear of their own "extinction"), Beyoncé represents an almost superhuman figure and a new, mixed-race world order. In another work made from reflective steel on an aluminium honeycomb panel, Horowitz merges the "Beyoncé" brand iconography with that of Pepsi, and in doing so seems to suggest an almost cyborg-like quality to the pop star's brand as displayed in public. Her potential for consumerist projections is seemingly endless. No public figure endorses more brands in the U.S. than Beyoncé. The universality of her public performance appeals to virtually every demographic and race.
 
The work of Jonathan Horowitz exudes the deeply democratic belief that art does not have to be separated from other spheres of public life. To some extent, the artist attempts to restore the image of some of its long-lost classical power – the power to entertain and to inform, and to affirm or undermine existing power structures. The works Man and 95 Dots form an almost corporeal counterpoint to the rest of the exhibition: In Man, a framed copy of an Art in America magazine cover showing a sculpture by Joel Shapiro leans against a wall – right next to an enlarged detail of the same magazine cover, where we see a man wearing headphones and work clothes, walking behind the large sculpture. 95 Dots, on the other hand, is a collaborative project for which Horowitz has asked 95 artists to paint an eight-inch dot onto a canvas, using nothing but paint and a brush. The individual canvases stand in stark contrast to the smooth aesthetics of consumer goods seen in the rest of the exhibition. Each of the dots is slightly different in size and shape, and carries the traces of an individual artist's hand.
 
 
Galerie Barbara Weiss
Kohlfurter Strasse 41/43
D - 10999 Berlin
Germany
T: +49 (0) 30 262 42 84
 
Galerie Barbara Weiss
 
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SIMON LEE GALLERY, London

Documentation of Cildo Meireles' O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux, 1979
Courtesy of the artist; Photography by Luiz Alphonsus
 
 
IN LINES AND REALIGNMENTS
CURATED BY LUIZA TEIXEIRA DE FREITAS AND THOM O'NIONS
 
Adriano Costa, Marcius Galan, André Komatsu, Cildo Meireles,
Nicolas Robbio, Roberto Winter and Carla Zaccagnini
26 June – 28 August 
 
Simon Lee Gallery is proud to present In Lines and Realignments, a group exhibition curated by Luiza Teixeira de Freitas and Thom O'Nions.
 
The exhibition brings together the work of six artists currently living and working in São Paulo along with documentation of a work by Brazilian conceptual artist Cildo Meireles. The exhibition's starting point is Meireles' work O Sermão da Montanha: Fiat Lux (The Sermon on the Mount: Let There Be Light), which took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1979 as a twenty-four hour performance event. This piece consists of a mirrored basement room with floor covered in sandpaper, on the sandpaper sits a pile of 126,000 matchboxes watched over by a group of security guards. On the surfaces of the mirrors are phrases taken from the Sermon on the Mount, as described in the Gospel of Matthew. The work lies somewhere between a sculpture and a performance. The key to the work is its potential for activation, its latent sense of precariousness and imminent transformation.
 
The exhibition gathers a set of works around these ideas of suspended action, artwork that exists on the cusp of change or transformation. The works in the exhibition embody ideas of performance whilst simultaneously remaining fixed.
 
Marcius Galan's practice involves the construction of installations, objects and videos that deal with ideas of geometry and balance, often using this as a way of framing social, political and economic conditions. His work in the exhibition consists of a site specific installation of nails in the wall that produces a diaphanous construction of light and shadow, hovering between presence and absence. This oscillation between light and shadow also occurs in Nicolas Robbio's work in which a projection of a window blind occupies a section of the wall, an imaginary threshold that is both an image and a physical presence in the room.
 
The presence of the viewer and their movement within the exhibition space is a key concern of Roberto Winter. His work in the exhibition consists of a scaled down model of a section of the room, containing a prism that reflects and refracts the light and space around it.
 
Carla Zaccagnini's work addresses our interaction with the world, extending the exhibition to the streets surrounding the gallery. The work proposes a different form of attention to street signs, finding moments of unintended meaning through removing letters from the street names. The piece is anchored in the gallery with a wall text and the viewer invited to take away a set of stickers for altering the nearby signs, re-imagining the texts of the city.
 
Adriano Costa's work deals with the physicality of the world, animating materials to reveal a shared physical quality with the viewer. These ideas also circulate within André Komatsu's practice. His work deals with a sense of measurement, how we construct systems of understanding and of quantification to help us deal with a disordered and ultimately chaotic world.
 
 
SIMON LEE GALLERY
12 Berkeley Street
London W1J 8DT
T: +44 (0) 20 74910100
 
SIMON LEE GALLERY
 
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Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne

KAI RICHTER
break through the lines
Installation view
Galerie Christian Lethert, Cologne, 2013
 
 
KAI RICHTER
break through the lines
 
07 June – 27 July, 2013
 
We are pleased to announce our third solo-exhibition Break Through The Lines by Düsseldorf based sculptor Kai Richter. Besides site-specific installations the arist shows a new group of collages.
 
Kai Richter's sculptures not only transform raw materials from the construction industry into works of art but also, and primarily, the space that surrounds them. In the truest sense of the word, his works "capture the space" since his construction-material installations not only occupy the space with their momentum and dynamics but also literally reach in and make the space real to the observer. As you can see, the sculptor is interested in creating a way to make a so-called dialog between the sculpture itself and the surrounding space in which it can unfold. The result is a symbiosis – a sort of "give and take" since the one defines the other and both claim their right to exist, at least for the limited duration of the artistic intervention.
 
Even though Richter's large-format, space-related works literally take over the space and assert themselves very strongly there, they point out the stories of the space with self-assured authority and are not provocative. Strongly reduced in form and color, areas and volumes are what count here.
 
Richter's installations, objects and photo-collages are not just the mere paraphrasing of architecture or construction sites. They themselves are neither architecture nor architectural by products nor only mere reproductions of architecture. Instead they exist next to or within the architecture as commentary, theses or even prognoses. (Gerard Goodrow)
 
Kai Richter's new collages give a fourth dimension to the complexity of his installations: the impossible. Seemingly multi-perspective they result in unreal and impossible impressions of space that reinforce the character of his sculptures.
 
After the summer we will open our fourth solo-exhibition with Berlin based artist Daniel Lergon.
 
 
Galerie Christian Lethert
Antwerpener Straße 4
50672 Cologne
Germany
T: +49 (0)221 35 60 590
 
Galerie Christian Lethert
 
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NETTIE HORN, London

Antti Laitinen
Still from the video Forest Deconstruction 2013
Courtesy of the artist and Nettie Horn, London
 
 
ANTTI LAITINEN
Forest Deconstruction
 
21 June - 27 July 2013
 
NETTIE HORN is pleased to present ANTTI LAITINEN's third solo exhibition at the gallery to celebrate the artist's participation in the 55th Venice Biennale where he is representing Finland. The exhibition will feature a selection of projects, which have marked the artist's practice since 2002, presented alongside documentation and works from the "Forest Square" project conceived for the Venice Biennale 2013.
 
Embodying the stamina of the Sisyphean gesture, Laitinen's performances are attempts to recall a certain primitive language and conventions where the engagement of physical repetition, the idea of discomfort and the implication of solitary gestures reflect on the essence of the human being. If the artist's drive deliberately flirts with the reality of life's struggles and defeats, it is through an idiosyncratic sense of humour that embraces the absurd. Somewhere between the irrational and unpredictable characters of Russian writer Daniil Kharm's stories and the surrealism of Monty Python, Laitinen exploits a philosophy of the absurd defined by Camus as "man's futile search for meaning, unity, and clarity in the face of an unintelligible world devoid of God and eternal truths or values" [1]. Is Laitinen this absurd man, described by Camus, as the conqueror who forgoes all promises of eternity to affect and engage fully in human history? Choosing action over contemplation certainly drives Laitinen's practice and heroic impetus – after all, we all know that nothing can last and no victory is final.
 
In "BARE NECESSITIES" (2002), Laitinen explores our romantic notions of nature in this urban age by living for four days in the Finnish national landscape, a forest beside a lake, without any food, water or clothes. The concept – escape from culture into the arms of the wilderness – is one of the basic motifs of Finnish identity: the first Finnish novel, Aleksis Kivi's "The Seven Brothers", is a story of seven men who escape into the forest to evade the demands of civilisation. Laitinen's work is a documented lifestyle experiment, which explores the idea of a return to nature in an age of ecological problematics. In the video, we see the artist in all sorts of seemingly comical situations: lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, picking up ants for food, fishing with a primitive spear, burrowing in the moss under a tree to sleep.
 
For the project "THREE STONES" (2004) Antti dug a hole and collected the stones he found after seven minutes of digging, seven hours and seven days. For "WALK THE LINE" (2005-ongoing) the artist printed his portrait on various maps and then walked along the lines of his face. The GPS system he carries along the way records his journey, drawing the path he walked. Laitinen performed this project in Helsinki, Kuopio, Jyväskylä, Luukkaa and Oulunkylä Forests (Finland), Kielder Forest, Newcastle, Pontburn Woods (UK), Warsaw, Krakow (Poland) and Athens (Greece) and Madrid (Spain).
 
For the project "FOREST SQUARE" Laitinen chopped down a ten meters square section of forest and sorted the entire found material such as the soil, moss, wood, pines, etc into various categories. He then rebuilt and reorganized the forest according to different colours – the composition referring to the pure abstraction and utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order from the De Stijl movement.
 
Between the summers of 2007 and 2009, Antti Laitinen dedicated his practice to the "ISLAND TRILOGY" which he developed through three subsequent chapters. The first chapter of the trilogy entitled "IT'S MY ISLAND" (2007) consists of a series of photographs, a video-triptych and an installation piece, depicting the artist constructing his own island (and micro-nation) in the Baltic Sea; using nothing but a spade, sand and sacks. Individually filling each of the 200 bags with sand, the three simultaneous videos go on to show Laitinen painstakingly dragging each bag to the same spot in the sea, braving the harsh waves and conditions, until the island starts to appear over the water. The second chapter of the trilogy entitled "VOYAGE" took place in 2008. For this project, Laitinen constructed and rowed a "paradise" island through a series of seascapes in the Baltic Sea, in Greece and on the Thames in London and thus creating his own appropriated "land" enabling him to travel.
 
"GROWLER" is the final performance project closing the "Island Trilogy" in the summer of 2009. Having preserved a seven Cubic meter block of natural ice in Styrofoam since the previous winter, Laitinen waited until the summer to resurrect this "iceberg" into the sea. The artist went on a slow rowing journey, iceberg in tow, during which the ice progressively disappeared and melted back into the water it once came from. This idiosyncratic vision is encapsulated through a video and a series of photographs.
 
1] See "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus, 1942
 
 
NETTIE HORN
17A Riding House Street
London W1W 7DS
T: 0044 (0)207 637 2106
 
NETTIE HORN
 
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DNA, Berlin

Mariana Vassileva
Break In / Out: Breathing Light, 2013
Steel, Mesh Wire, Bulb
200x60x60 cm
Courtesy: DNA BERLIN
 
 
MARIANA VASSILEVA
Fold & Break
 
until 31 August 2013
 
The solo exhibition of MARIANA VASSILEVA "FOLD & BREAK"  that is firstly presented at the DNA BERLIN , is compiled from 5 brand newworks and one work produced in 2012-13. A wire cage with a loose end on one side suggests either escaping or breaking in. A video installation presents the viewer with a composition of hands of different ages, tapping on a surface. In the absence of facial expressions, the hands reveal the personality and its momentous emotional state. A video shows a person, swirling vigorously around himself a burning bundle at twilight. He creates a universe of his own with his private "sun" circling around him and casting a shadow, which frenetically runs around him, as he stands in one place.
 
This new video work "Turnovo" (2013) is directly connected with her new installations. These works of Mariana Vassileva that are filmed in her hometown in Bulgaria, inspired, influenced from and about the story of her parents,  are presented for the first time to the public at the DNA BERLIN.
 
 
DNA
Auguststraße 20
10117 Berlin
Germany
T: + 49 (0)30 28 59 96 52
 
DNA
 
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Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich

Los Carpinteros
Clavos Torcidos [Twisted Nails] (2013)
Metal, 40 parts, Unique
each part between: min: 110 × 70 × 45 cm, max: 210 × 30 × 20 cm
Exhibition view: Los Carpinteros 'Bola de Pelo', Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, 2013
Photo: Thomas Strub
Courtesy of the artists and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich
 
 
LOS CARPINTEROS
Bola de Pelo
 
June 8 to July 27, 2013
 
Galerie Peter Kilchmann is pleased to present this single exhibition by Los Carpinteros. Graduated from the Superior Art Institute of Havana, the collective, consisting of Dagoberto Rodríguez (*1969) and Marco Castillo (*1971), currently live and work in Madrid, Spain as well as in Cuba. On the occasion of this exhibition Los Carpinteros will be showing a series of new works, including sculptures, large works on paper, and their new art film Pellejo.
 
Upon entering the gallery, one encounters forty metal sculptures that seem to cover the floor of the first gallery space. Clavos Torcidos [Twisted Nails] (2013) is an installation comprised of large-format nails (approx. 150 – 200 cm, each). Seemingly twisted and rusty the nails look like they have been extracted from their former purpose and discarded. The motif of "Failure" comes to mind. Bent out of shape, the nails have lost their purpose, when in reality the sculptures have been carefully crafted. Here, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. The different contours drawn by Clavos Torcidos resemble lying bodies, which are sleeping in different positions or the falled men after combat – in both cases the work discusses on the human shape and its suffering. This physicality finds an echo in the second gallery space, where the video work Pellejo is shown.
 
Pellejo [Skin] (2013) is the second film made by the collective. A black and white HD projection shows the passing of time while two actors perform a sexual scene with each other. As an analysis of life and the essence of human existence, the film is a meditation on the meaning of time. The title itself refers to "skin", the part of the body that displays the most physical signs of aging and therefore may be seen as a symbol for change and temporality.
 
In a third gallery space Los Carpinteros show new works on paper. Situating an object against an empty background that seems to convey some sort of landscape, the playful title of the works reveals what is in front of the viewer: Mohawk (2013, 87 x 121 cm, framed), Mullet (2013, 87 x 121 cm, framed), and Punk (2013, 87 x 121 cm, framed) must of the drawings refer to different hairstyles that became famous during the 1980s and that are now seen as wooden poles on sand dunes.
 
The large-format sculpture Bola de Pelo [Hairball] (2013) marks the final peak of the exhibition. Continuing with the tendency of Los Carpinteros to formulate one motif in a variety of techniques, the sculpture shows the hairball as an abstract sculpture. While traditional sculpture is a reflection on volume, this piece shifts the focus to the idea of a possible "skin" of the sculpture.
 
Los Carpinteros are currently also exhibiting their installation Candela (2013, various formats) in a solo show with the same title at the contemporary art space Matadero de Madrid, in Spain until July 21. The installation reflects the energy of the current social times with the help of a backlit mural showing flames. The backlight is a lighting technique traditionally used in large political portraits in public spaces in Latin America. For their participation in the 4 th Biennial of Thessaloniki the collective will show the photograph series Túneles Populares (1999, each 130 x 185 cm, framed).
 
 
Galerie Peter Kilchmann
Zahnradstrasse 21
CH-8005 Zurich
Switzerland
T: +41 44 278 10 10
 
Galerie Peter Kilchmann
 
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Art Laboratory Berlin

 

International Interdisciplinary Conference
 
Synaesthesia.
Discussing a Phenomenon in the Arts, Humanities and (Neuro-)Science
 
5/ 6 July, 2013
 
Theater Glaskasten, Prinzenallee 33, Berlin-Wedding
 
As a theoretical addition to our ongoing exhibition series SYNAESTHESIA (October 2012 – July 2013/ http://artlaboratory-berlin.org/home_eng.htm), Art Laboratory Berlin will hold an international interdisciplinary conference to further explore and theoretically question the field of multisensory perception.
 
The term "synaesthesia", from the Greek "aisthesis" ("Sensation", "sensory impression") and "syn" ("together") means the experience of two or more sensory impressions at the same time. Currently there is a strikingly strong interest in the coupling of the senses in science, humanities and in contemporary art. This should come as no surprise: Our daily life in recent years has been subject to ever more multimedia and multisensory experiences. Comparing the latest technologies in the field of communication we come upon the radical technological development during the last 25 years: music video (text, music, colour), computer (as "total" sensory object) and also newest multiple forms of mobile phones (not only used for calls, but as a photo camera, music player or text machine, etc.).
 
It is the aim of Art Laboratory Berlin to grasp the specific impulses of our current complex, synchronous and technologised society on the phenomenon of synaesthesia, with its distinctive form of sensory fluctuation. For the upcoming conference, we are interested in discussing issues from diverse scholarly fields – humanities, arts as well as natural and social sciences – regarding both historical positions and contemporary inquiries. We will reflect topics such as: synaesthesia and the neurological discourse (memory and cognition; sensory perception); synaesthesia – between perception and subjectivity; synaesthesia and language; synaesthetic modalities (grapheme synaesthesia; synaesthesia of smell, taste, touch, sound and vision); synaesthesia in art and cultural history (in visual art,  literature and film); synaesthesia and the digital world (synaesthesia in the 21st Century).

Conference Concept: Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz, Art Laboratory Berlin
Realisation of Conference: The Art Laboratory Berlin Team: Regine Rapp, Christian de Lutz, Olga Shmakova, Chiara Cartuccia, Chiara Massari, Anastasia Shavlokhova, Ashley Chang
Cooperation partners: Association of Neuroesthetics_Platform for Art and Neuroscience, fotoscout
 
Supported by:

 
Media partner:

 
CONFERENCE_PROGRAM
 
Friday, 5 July, 2013
 
9:30: Registration
 
10:00
Regine Rapp, Christian de Lutz (Art Laboratory Berlin)
Welcome and Introduction

Keynote // Moderator: Regine Rapp
Hinderk M. Emrich (Director of the Center for Psychological Medicine, Hannover)
Synaesthesia, Synaisthesis and the Enhancement of Coherence
 
11:30 // BREAK
 
11:45
Defining Synaesthesia // Moderator: Regine Rapp
 
Ditte Lyngkaer Pedersen (Artist, Århus)
Why is Green a Red Word?
 
Sina A. Trautmann-Lengsfeld (Dept. of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg)
Multisensory Processing in Synaesthesia
 
Larisa Prokofyeva (Dept. for Linguistics, Saratov State Medical University)
Integrated Text Analysis with Phonosemantic Characteristic Consideration
 
13:45 // LUNCH BREAK
 
14:45
Translating Synaesthesia // Moderator: Christian de Lutz
 
Polina Dimova (Institute for Russian and Comparative Literature, Oberlin College, Ohio)
Synaesthesia at the Fin-de-Siècle: Art and Science
 
Eva-Maria Bolz (Artist, Berlin)
Der Innere Monitor
 
James Rosenow (Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago)
Translated Modes of Poe-etic Synaesthesia in Early Amateur Cinema (Charles Klein's "The Telltale Heart" and J. Sibley Watson's "The Fall of the House of Usher")
 
16:45 // COFFEE BREAK
 
17:15
Sound and Vision as Synaesthetic Phenomenon // Moderator: Chiara Cartuccia
 
Birgit Schneider (Institute for Arts and Media, University Potsdam)
On Hearing Eyes and Seeing Ears. Berlin Optophonia in the 1920s.
 
David Strang (Artist, Plymouth)
Transmission + Interference
 
19:00 Reception at Art Laboratory Berlin
 
Saturday, 6 July, 2013
 
10:00
Synaesthetic Sensations in Culture History, Film and the Visual Arts // Moderator: Regine Rapp
 
Eva Kimminich (Institute for Romance Languages, University Potsdam)
The Five Senses: From Cooperation up to Specialization. Observations on a Historical Development in the Occident
 
Caro Verbeek (Royal Academy of Arts Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)
Inhaling History of Art – On the Role of Olfaction during the Avant-Garde
 
Gertrud Koch (Institute for Film Studies, Free University Berlin)
Word and Object in Film – a Synaesthetic Presentation
 
12:30 // LUNCH BREAK
 
14:00
Synaesthetic Laboratories of Art & Science // Moderator: Olga Shmakova

Sabine Flach (Dept. of Fine Arts and Dept. of Art History, School of Visual Arts, New York City)
Laboratory of Senses – James Turrell
 
Madi Boyd (Artist, London)
The Point of Perception – On Collaborations Between Artists and Neuroscientists

Agnieszka Janik (Dept. of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London)
Synaesthesia for Colour is Linked to Reduced Motion Perception
 
16:00 // COFFEE BREAK
 
16:30
Synaesthesia and the 21st Century // Moderator: Christian de Lutz

Katharina Gsöllpointner/ Romana Schuler (Media Arts/ Art History, University of Applied Arts, Vienna)
Digital Synaesthesia – Introduction into a New Project

Romi Mikulinsky (Macquarie University, Sidney/ Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design, Jerusalem)
From Page to Screen – The Present and Future of Reading
 
18:00
Final Discussion
 
******
 
Current exhibition at Art Laboratory Berlin:
 
Synaesthesia/4: Translating, Correcting, Archiving
Eva-Maria Bolz / Ditte Lyngkaer Pedersen / Andy Holtin
 
Fri — Sun, 2 — 6 PM and by appointment
Extended opening hours on both conference days: 9 AM - 8 PM
 
More information at: http://www.artlaboratory-berlin.org/html/eng-exh-archive.htm

 

Regine Rapp, Christian de Lutz
Prinzenallee 34, 13359 Berlin
www.artlaboratory-berlin.org
presse@artlaboratory-berlin.org

galerie laurent mueller, Paris

Elvire Bonduelle
Les dessins à la règle - 2012
Ink-jet print on aluminium
70 x 100 cm
Courtesy of the artist and galerie laurent mueller
 
 
SALLE D'ATTENTE III
Elvire Bonduelle invites Adam Ball, Michel Blazy, Côme de Bouchony, Fouad Bouchoucha, Rada Boukova, Nicolas Boulard, Pierre Charpin, Guillaume Constantin, Laurence De Leersnyder, Nathalie Elemento, Sammy Engramer, Julie Genelin, Liam Gillick, Aurélie Godard, Daniel Gordon, Ann Guillaume, Vincent de Hoÿm, Hanna Husberg, Niall Macdonald, Shana Moulton, Camila Oliveira Fairclough, Renaud Patard, Charles Petit, Romaric Tisserand and Adrien Vescovi
 
June 6th to July 20th 2013
 
The conditions for looking at art are miserable. Shows are often full of people, a few of whom are idiots. You can only stand and look, usually past someone else. No space, no privacy, no sitting or lying down, no drinking or eating, no thinking, no living. It's all a show. It's just information.
Donald Judd, Complete Writings 1959-1975, Halifax: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design & New York: New York University Press, 2005 (1973)
 
Because the fact is: quite often, we do not see anything. We are pushing our vision to see here, now, in three minutes, in thirty seconds. Why can one not sit more often in front of the artworks?
 
Salle d'attente III is the third instalment of an exhibition series based on the idea that waiting rooms are spatiotemporal parentheses which offer themselves to the contemplation of artworks.
 
At the galerie laurent mueller, this new experience unites 26 artists in two spaces linked by a staircase. As if a single waiting time did not suffice, a second room is expecting the visitor upstairs.
 
The installation reminds us of medical waiting rooms, where each practician has added his contribution to the whole. One doctor hung up a painting by an artist friend, his colleague an inherited painting, while the anaesthesiologist inserted an antiquated etching, an out-of-fashion poster, and so on.
 
In our waiting room, the visitor will at first be taken aback. Can one sit on one of these three benches? After all, one does not sit on art but these cushions seem to invite us to. What can we read on them? Sit on it, Wait and See, Là ça va ... All these injunctions to let oneself go, to patience, to rest. Well, let us sit down.
 
Left waiting, the visitor's eye starts to wander on the walls, establishing unexpected links between the works. A coat rack, a monochrome, photographies, a wall clock, Brazilian words, drawings. From this disparate cast emerges a dialogue where the old distinctions between furniture, decoration and art are mixed. All is tangled, covering the tracks and the conventions.
 
On the first floor the tension mounts. Another waiting room. This one is much smaller, the ceiling is low and the two doors are closed. Covered with a cave-painting-like wallpaper, one would think to be inside a grotto, a cavern, the den of a doctor with strange tastes. Music alternates with a video, which, again, reminds us of this feeling of waiting. Keep on waiting, you are the next on the list.
E.B.
 
A book developed by Elvire Bonduelle and published by the gallery will complement the exhibition.
Launch projected on July 11th 2013.
 
The exhibition will be exceptionally closed from June 25th until July 6th 2013.
 
 
galerie laurent mueller
75 rue des Archives
75003 Paris
France
T: +33 1 42 74 04 25
 
galerie laurent mueller
 
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