ARTISTs
VALERIE KRAUSE
With the wish to create a sense of the whole space that enlarges the context of every single work, partly fragmentarily appearing sculptures form an ensemble, which in turn can be understood as a fragment with again, a potential continuation.
The installation is aligned along the length of the space, a forward movement at various tempi. The rhythm of the movement is generated by the interaction of occupied space and spacing, both in terms of the entire space as well as within individual sculptures. There is a contrast between gentle exercise and very straight movement that cuts the space sharply. In addition to the horizontal forward movement, there are different levels in the vertical. Ground and wall, with their different physical implication, are integrated in the work.
– Valerie Krause
Valerie Krause’s method is synthetic; her design is free and open. It’s as if the sculptures involve a series of contrasts, of softness and hardness, smooth and rough, colour and anti-colour, et cetera. However, Krause’s work remains inscribed in a classical concept of beauty that aspires to correct spatial relationships, dimensions and balance.
http://galeriegretameert.com/exhibitions/forming-space-spacing-form/
Coming from a stonemasonry background, her awareness of materials and their abilities is evident within her work. I love her ability to bring a life and atmosphere to otherwise cold and static materials. Within many of her pieces one can't help but question their construction, how has she managed to make cement curve, or a large stone balance effortlessly on a single aluminium pole. Her compositions hold weight and gravity in their setting, undoubtably because of their materiality, but also because Krause works cleverly with contrasting tensions; playing with hard/soft, static/dynamic, smooth/rough, streamline/erratic.
The installation is aligned along the length of the space, a forward movement at various tempi. The rhythm of the movement is generated by the interaction of occupied space and spacing, both in terms of the entire space as well as within individual sculptures. There is a contrast between gentle exercise and very straight movement that cuts the space sharply. In addition to the horizontal forward movement, there are different levels in the vertical. Ground and wall, with their different physical implication, are integrated in the work.
– Valerie Krause
Valerie Krause’s method is synthetic; her design is free and open. It’s as if the sculptures involve a series of contrasts, of softness and hardness, smooth and rough, colour and anti-colour, et cetera. However, Krause’s work remains inscribed in a classical concept of beauty that aspires to correct spatial relationships, dimensions and balance.
http://galeriegretameert.com/exhibitions/forming-space-spacing-form/
Coming from a stonemasonry background, her awareness of materials and their abilities is evident within her work. I love her ability to bring a life and atmosphere to otherwise cold and static materials. Within many of her pieces one can't help but question their construction, how has she managed to make cement curve, or a large stone balance effortlessly on a single aluminium pole. Her compositions hold weight and gravity in their setting, undoubtably because of their materiality, but also because Krause works cleverly with contrasting tensions; playing with hard/soft, static/dynamic, smooth/rough, streamline/erratic.
IAN KIAER
Kiaer's idea of "correalism" sought as well to broaden this original intention into an approach to the interaction of art and other objects with interior space, and architectural structures with their surrounding landscape.
Ian Kaier’s installations conject illusionary atmospheres with spartan theatricality. Often researching specific subjects relating to art, architecture, philosophy, and social theory as departure points, Kaier’s work transcends literal reading to create suggestions of invented narratives
https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/ian_kiaer_articles.htm
Though his work, Kaier explores social interaction with the constructed environment, alluding to both utopian ideals and their failure....
in relation to gallery spaces, responding to the building and its context
...
repurposing abandoned materials... exploration of objects in space
...
Kiaer uses 'gesture' in relation to the placement of materials in order to shape the audiences interaction with the environment.
stripped away the gallery furniture to expose the concrete surfaces integral to the buildings structure
...Conceived from Kiaer's fascination with thirteenth century Chinese painting, the subtle and abstract intervention alters the vitrines' function as a space to display objects to works of art themselves. [In reference to "tooth house" exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery]
http://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com/usr/documents/press/download_url/442/ik-mousse-magazine-september-2014.pdf
Finding Kiaer's work was a pivotal moment for me and my practice. My previous attempts at trying to create an 'installation' had fallen short of expectation; his works have given me a new source of inspiration and branch of ideas. His use of found objects and materials in their raw form is comparable to what i've been trying to do within my own work - but his inspiration from narratives and architectural theorists gives his work an edge which was lacking in mine. Through clever placing and thoughtful analysis of space and interaction he creates sculptural instillations which explicitly show the materiality of the chosen objects, as well as presenting them as something new. As the viewer, one if forced to analyse the material as it stands, as well as how it interacts with its environment. A sheet of polystyrene takes on a new life, alluding to plaster board, or another type of industrial material, pushing it far past its initial use.
It is his clever and considered presenting of these objects which I need to encompass in my own work... an awareness of not just the material, but how the viewer might interact with and perceive it.
Ian Kaier’s installations conject illusionary atmospheres with spartan theatricality. Often researching specific subjects relating to art, architecture, philosophy, and social theory as departure points, Kaier’s work transcends literal reading to create suggestions of invented narratives
https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/ian_kiaer_articles.htm
Though his work, Kaier explores social interaction with the constructed environment, alluding to both utopian ideals and their failure....
in relation to gallery spaces, responding to the building and its context
...
repurposing abandoned materials... exploration of objects in space
...
Kiaer uses 'gesture' in relation to the placement of materials in order to shape the audiences interaction with the environment.
stripped away the gallery furniture to expose the concrete surfaces integral to the buildings structure
...Conceived from Kiaer's fascination with thirteenth century Chinese painting, the subtle and abstract intervention alters the vitrines' function as a space to display objects to works of art themselves. [In reference to "tooth house" exhibition at Alison Jacques Gallery]
http://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com/usr/documents/press/download_url/442/ik-mousse-magazine-september-2014.pdf
Finding Kiaer's work was a pivotal moment for me and my practice. My previous attempts at trying to create an 'installation' had fallen short of expectation; his works have given me a new source of inspiration and branch of ideas. His use of found objects and materials in their raw form is comparable to what i've been trying to do within my own work - but his inspiration from narratives and architectural theorists gives his work an edge which was lacking in mine. Through clever placing and thoughtful analysis of space and interaction he creates sculptural instillations which explicitly show the materiality of the chosen objects, as well as presenting them as something new. As the viewer, one if forced to analyse the material as it stands, as well as how it interacts with its environment. A sheet of polystyrene takes on a new life, alluding to plaster board, or another type of industrial material, pushing it far past its initial use.
It is his clever and considered presenting of these objects which I need to encompass in my own work... an awareness of not just the material, but how the viewer might interact with and perceive it.
mATIAS FALDBAKKEN
Matias Faldbakken’s work, a combination of iconophilia and iconophobia, is primarily concerned with the various tensions between proposition and cancellation, aggression and retreat, and language and its abstraction into illegibility or absurdity. A frequent characteristic of his work is the use of materials derived from the shipping or construction industries, essential supports of trade and commerce, which he powerfully reintroduces into aesthetic discourse.
The work expands on a visual language drawn from ideas of transport and exchange, weight and balance, interstitial spaces, and anti-monuments.
https://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/matias-faldbakken/press-release
To call Matias Faldbakken a bad artist is not necessarily to berate him. The intelligence of slackerdom lies in its shrugging self-protection: you can’t judge that which never really tried in the first place. Or can you? The laziness, non-commitment and disavowal that can be read into the Norwegian sculptor’s works are less remnants of actual disaffection than representations of contempt. They show how the agency in any act of making, when actualized, can splinter into debris. And representations, unlike intentions, are not judgement-proof.
The distressed or broken industrial sculptures (sawed-open propane tanks, plastic containers filled with cement) and framed two-dimensional works Faldbakken presented at STANDARD (OSLO) may have been formally opposed (damaged vs. polished, floor vs. wall), but both were two sides of the same trash aesthetic that Faldbakken has fruitfully propagated for the past decade. To turn detritus into treasure – as the artist does in his four, framed cardboard boxes (Four Flat Boxes) and trash bags and sacks [Untitled (Burlap & Plastic)] (both 2014), might suggest a boastfulness that anything – even a disposable container – can pass as art. Reciprocally, such disavowal may seek to comment upon and eventually sink that whole, broken plane of valuation, holding itself to higher, if invisible, standards. Resignation and idealism are often closely aligned.
Read more at:
https://frieze.com/article/matias-faldbakken
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article.
Artworks which are overtly 'bad', or appear 'underdeveloped'; show a naivety and have a nonchalant atmosphere are often incredibly far from that. An undisguised appreciation for materials and their natural form is more often than not overlooked as a form of 'art', but for me, recognition of materials aesthetic beauty is admirable. Having said this, his work is not without context and is not simply 'aesthetic', as can be read in the above statements summarising his works meaning. But his expression of 'tension' is revealed through ratchet straps, 'destruction' represented by smashed concrete, 'vandalism' represented through graffiti. Pablo Larios writes in his article 'Matias Falbakken' (see above) 'Faldbakken’s demolished car, Untitled (The Wheel), displayed in the entrance of the gallery, is a perfect Ballardian emblem, sexualizing technical destruction in the form of the car collision', although a simple concept, it is suggestive of gratitude of engineering and industrial developments- and then the deconstruction of it.
'His art is based on an engagement with social norms in which he approaches popular culture with gestures that combines refusal and destruction with productive forms of chaos and vandalism' https://www.presenhuber.com/home/exhibitions/2012/SHALL-I-WRITE-IT92/Press-Release.html
The work expands on a visual language drawn from ideas of transport and exchange, weight and balance, interstitial spaces, and anti-monuments.
https://www.paulacoopergallery.com/exhibitions/matias-faldbakken/press-release
To call Matias Faldbakken a bad artist is not necessarily to berate him. The intelligence of slackerdom lies in its shrugging self-protection: you can’t judge that which never really tried in the first place. Or can you? The laziness, non-commitment and disavowal that can be read into the Norwegian sculptor’s works are less remnants of actual disaffection than representations of contempt. They show how the agency in any act of making, when actualized, can splinter into debris. And representations, unlike intentions, are not judgement-proof.
The distressed or broken industrial sculptures (sawed-open propane tanks, plastic containers filled with cement) and framed two-dimensional works Faldbakken presented at STANDARD (OSLO) may have been formally opposed (damaged vs. polished, floor vs. wall), but both were two sides of the same trash aesthetic that Faldbakken has fruitfully propagated for the past decade. To turn detritus into treasure – as the artist does in his four, framed cardboard boxes (Four Flat Boxes) and trash bags and sacks [Untitled (Burlap & Plastic)] (both 2014), might suggest a boastfulness that anything – even a disposable container – can pass as art. Reciprocally, such disavowal may seek to comment upon and eventually sink that whole, broken plane of valuation, holding itself to higher, if invisible, standards. Resignation and idealism are often closely aligned.
Read more at:
https://frieze.com/article/matias-faldbakken
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article.
Artworks which are overtly 'bad', or appear 'underdeveloped'; show a naivety and have a nonchalant atmosphere are often incredibly far from that. An undisguised appreciation for materials and their natural form is more often than not overlooked as a form of 'art', but for me, recognition of materials aesthetic beauty is admirable. Having said this, his work is not without context and is not simply 'aesthetic', as can be read in the above statements summarising his works meaning. But his expression of 'tension' is revealed through ratchet straps, 'destruction' represented by smashed concrete, 'vandalism' represented through graffiti. Pablo Larios writes in his article 'Matias Falbakken' (see above) 'Faldbakken’s demolished car, Untitled (The Wheel), displayed in the entrance of the gallery, is a perfect Ballardian emblem, sexualizing technical destruction in the form of the car collision', although a simple concept, it is suggestive of gratitude of engineering and industrial developments- and then the deconstruction of it.
'His art is based on an engagement with social norms in which he approaches popular culture with gestures that combines refusal and destruction with productive forms of chaos and vandalism' https://www.presenhuber.com/home/exhibitions/2012/SHALL-I-WRITE-IT92/Press-Release.html
CLAY KETTER
Clay Ketter came to make mature artworks through a consideration of his work as a laborer - as a carpenter or construction worker to be precise. The construction and destruction of work that he did as a laborer, particularly but not exclusively in art galleries and museums, became both the subject and the object of his art: of paintings sculptures and sometimes installations. Simply put, his work became his work of art. Subject, object and process were brought together in a unified triangulation of purpose. No translation, no metaphor, no representational image of work is necessary to Ketter's project. Labor, as an abstract form of exchange and as the telltale product of hard ritualistic work, and as material evicence of human accomplishment, became the total reservoir of meanings, unfiltered.
Ketter, then, was not necessarily trying to extend the idea of "pictorial nominalism", the term Marcel Duchamp used for problematizing the painting by virtue of the "assisted readymade" in the early part of this century. But Ketter's artistic work has much to do with the same kind of issues, although inverted and imploded in relation to their original significances. If "pictorial nominalism", as thoroughly extrapolated by Thierry DuDuve, means a moment in history in which the terms of art change by virtue of a new cultural frission, Ketter is not so much an innovator as Duchamp, but he certainly is an extension of that early modernist crisis. Ketter presents a new ghost with its shadow in the machine of art history.
From:
'Clay Ketter: Labors of love. Love's of labors lost.'
Essay by Bruce W. Ferguson
Ketters work depicts the remains of buildings, labor and craft. Often his work shows deconstructed cabinets, kitchens, and stripped back materials. He flirts with a reductive aesthetic, while also honestly representing everyday objects. A lot of his work could be overlooked as decomposing, damaged ruins; old drains, and architectural drawings; yo-yoing between aesthetic and functional. It is this ambiguity which I find so appealing in his work, and his refreshing decision to present his 'labor' as 'art'.
Ketter, then, was not necessarily trying to extend the idea of "pictorial nominalism", the term Marcel Duchamp used for problematizing the painting by virtue of the "assisted readymade" in the early part of this century. But Ketter's artistic work has much to do with the same kind of issues, although inverted and imploded in relation to their original significances. If "pictorial nominalism", as thoroughly extrapolated by Thierry DuDuve, means a moment in history in which the terms of art change by virtue of a new cultural frission, Ketter is not so much an innovator as Duchamp, but he certainly is an extension of that early modernist crisis. Ketter presents a new ghost with its shadow in the machine of art history.
From:
'Clay Ketter: Labors of love. Love's of labors lost.'
Essay by Bruce W. Ferguson
Ketters work depicts the remains of buildings, labor and craft. Often his work shows deconstructed cabinets, kitchens, and stripped back materials. He flirts with a reductive aesthetic, while also honestly representing everyday objects. A lot of his work could be overlooked as decomposing, damaged ruins; old drains, and architectural drawings; yo-yoing between aesthetic and functional. It is this ambiguity which I find so appealing in his work, and his refreshing decision to present his 'labor' as 'art'.
adrián villar rojas
...argentinan artist adrián villar rojas has used resources from the landscape in the making of ‘planetarium’, a large-scale work that embodies the artist’s interests in ecosystems, decay, and man’s interference in nature. Industrial materials such as paint and concrete, and found objects like metal scraps and discarded clothing have been sourced from sharjah, while organic matter such as seeds, shells, volcanic rock and decaying remains of birds have been sourced from mexico. These materials are made into massive towering columns of plants, rocks, and trash, set within the 2,400-square-metre space with a balanced composition. framing the main plaza of the abandoned factory, villar rojas has distributed tons of freshly produced compost into rows that mimic reverse trenches, leading visitors within the interior of the building. The use of enriched soil, a substance unnatural to the region, seeks to demonstrate how increased consumption can be made into living parts of the environment.
http://www.designboom.com/art/adrian-villar-rojas-sharjah-biennial-12-planetarium-03-10-2015/?utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_source=subscribers
http://www.designboom.com/art/adrian-villar-rojas-sharjah-biennial-12-planetarium-03-10-2015/?utm_campaign=daily&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_source=subscribers
Space and the architect - lessons in architecture 2
Book:
'Space and the Architect: lessons in Architecture 2' by Herman Hertzberger
'The idea of space is more an idea than a delineated concept. Try to put it into words and you lose it.
The idea of space stands for everything that widens or removes existing limitations and for everything that opens more possibilities, and is thus the opposite of hermetic, oppressing, awkward, shut up and divided up into drawers and partitionsm sortedm established, predetermined and immutable, shut in, made certain.'
pg 14
'...This chair cuts through the air, so to speak, without taking its place, occupying it, as any traditional tub-chair-style furniture would do. You might ask of everything you make: does it demand space or create space?'
pg 12
'Space and the Architect: lessons in Architecture 2' by Herman Hertzberger
'The idea of space is more an idea than a delineated concept. Try to put it into words and you lose it.
The idea of space stands for everything that widens or removes existing limitations and for everything that opens more possibilities, and is thus the opposite of hermetic, oppressing, awkward, shut up and divided up into drawers and partitionsm sortedm established, predetermined and immutable, shut in, made certain.'
pg 14
'...This chair cuts through the air, so to speak, without taking its place, occupying it, as any traditional tub-chair-style furniture would do. You might ask of everything you make: does it demand space or create space?'
pg 12