Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Poetic Cosmos of the Breath

Poetic Cosmos of the Breath:

The name Tomas Saraceno should be known since his utopic installation ‘Cloud Cities’ last year. With his work the argentine artist goes beyond the traditional conceptions of place, time, gravity and our familiar notions of architecture. Saraceno is an artist and architect whos visions for cities floating in the air has led him to create a series of experimental structures such as balloons or inflatable modular platforms that can be inhabited and exploit natural energies. Any of his objects is an invitation to think about alternative knowledge, about emotions and the interaction with others. They invite you to participate like ‘Poetic Cosmos of the Breath’, an experimental solar dome, which was part of ‘The Arts Catalyst’s’ 2nd International Artists Airshow.

At dawn, crowds formed around a giant and colorful, circular foil, pinned to the ground at the edges with sand bags. Throughout the morning, the artist and his team gradually filled the foil with air and visitors could walk through this stunning colored wonderland, which is just magical, unique and full of positive energy. A witness to the event said, ‘Slowly we helped the giant fill with air and grow as the sun came up…the material spectacularly colourful as the sun reflected off it.’













All images © Tomas Saraceno | Via: My Modern Met






Aline Bouvy & John Gillis

Aline Bouvy & John Gillis:
Venusia, 2007



animated and directed by ALINE BOUVY and JOHN GILLIS

original soundtrack written and performed by JOHNSTON SHEARD/  SANDI SIROCCO
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Since 2000 Belgian artists ALINE BOUVY and JOHN GILLIS pursue an ongoing interest in collages and forms and how they can present anthropomorphic movements. Their sculptures, drawings, and videos derive from transformations of everyday structures that they transpose into their own visual language. Using the medium of collage, they often creates surreal as well as melancholic pieces of work, reflecting cultural phenomena.

Partly influenced by the French photographer and stylist SERGE LUTENS, Venusia (2007) is a lush collage of body parts, dismembered from their original glamorous advertisement models, floating animals, and kaleidoscopic patterns. The mere repetition of eyes, arms, heads, lips passing the screen is carnivalesque and celebrates the beauty in a generic way, yet it also suggests a commodified seriality and reproducibility, which puts a high-capitalist gloss over this artificial and easily expandable dream world.

Lured by a pearl necklace, like a fish by bait, a woman bites into it. Seduced by the desire for splendor and the Venusian promise of beauty, she incorporates the pearls, hides herself behind polished fingernails, and appears in the nude, yet masked, like FRITZ LANG‘s robot woman.
If you don’t know them, you should have a cautious look at their stricking and inspiring work via bouvygillis.net

THE ITERATION by Lisa Shahno

THE ITERATION by Lisa Shahno:




THE ITERATION, (collection) 2012 by Lisa Shahno_

"The collection is inspired by the Fractal Cosmology theory which maintains the structure of the universe to be of the fractal nature and the universe itself to be infinite in any direction. A fractal is a kind of geometric shape which can be divided into parts, each at least approximately a reduced-size semblance of the whole, or a self-similar shape. According to the theory, there is a hierarchical organization (or nesting) of matter - from the elementary particles to the clusters off galaxies, with three main levels: atomic, astral and galactic. So the central issue of Fractal Cosmology is that the universe may consist of infinite number of levels which are similar to each other but different in scale - thereby there could be no "smallest" nor "largest" scales - the whole observable universe can be enclosed inside a molecule of some larger-scale universe and at the same time an atom may contain another world with its own galaxies, stars and inhabited planets..."  See more;


"Models of the collection represent a variety of matter levels in the universe. All pieces' patterns are composed of the one repeating basic element - the square divided by diagonals - an elementary particle, but each model has a different scale and number of particles involved." - Lisa Shahno.



Grid I (Fractal dimension = 1)
Catwalk speed ( V ) = 15 cm/second












Grid II (Fractal dimension = 0,5)
V = 30 cm/second







Grid III (Fractal dimension = 0,33) 
V = 50 cm/second








Grid IIII (Fractal dimension = 0,14) 
V = 100 cm/second








Grid V (Fractal dimension = 0,14)
V = 100 cm/second












Paul McCarthy. Propo

Paul McCarthy. Propo:

all images: © PAUL MCCARTHY 

Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
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A few weeks ago, American artist PAUL MCCARTHY inaugurated the Zurich season opening at Hauser & Wirth with Propo, a series of over 60 large photographs depicting everyday objects, dirtied, ruined and photographed against colourful backdrops that contrast with the mysterious nature of the decontextualized objects.

Between 1972 – 1983, I did a series of performances which involved masks, bottles, pans, uniforms, dolls, stuffed animals, etc. After the performances these objects were either left behind or they were collected and stored in suitcases and trunks to be used in future performances. In 1983, the closed suitcases and trunks containing these performance objects were stacked on a table and exhibited as sculpture. In 1991, I opened the suitcases and trunks photographing each item. The group of photographs in their entirety was titled PROPO.– PAUL MCCARTHY
Born in Utah, USA, in 1945, PAUL MCCARTHY is best known for his work with video, sculpture, provocative multimedia installation and his wild performances in the late Sixties. With irreverent wit, MCCARTHY investigates basic but difficult concepts such as society, relationships, sex and pop culture.

Good news: Propo is currently on view at Hauser & Wirth Zürich until October 20, 2012







Ben Wheele. Decoration

Ben Wheele. Decoration:


Decoration from Ben Wheele on Vimeo.

Decoration (2011) by BEN WHEELE

voice: ROBERT ASHBY, music: JANE CHAPMAN, CHARLES MAULEVERER, J.P RAMEAU

sound: GIULA SCARANTINO, MIKE WYELD

assistant colourist: ADA  POLCYN

production: Royal College of Art, 2011 ©
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I mentioned BEN WHEELE before, and I am bound to be mentioning him again since I like his work so much. In the hands of British artist BEN WHEELE, animation becomes a medium for transgressive and nightmarish fairy tales. His practice is an attempt to find dramatic narrative in unusual netherworlds, where logic has somehow receded but where dark humour and emotions are involved.
Decoration (2011) tells the story of a vase that lives inside a girl also inhabited by a small theatre. The vase repeatedly depicts a childhood memory of her dead pet hamster, using her living tissue. Both pleasing and repulsivethe artist displays the absurdity and uncontrollability of daily life. He shows a society degenerated to grotesqueness but confronts it with wit and fantasy. Welcome in BEN WHEELE’s cosmology!





David Batchelor

David Batchelor:


"The work by David Batchelor  (b. 1955) is largely concerned with the experience of colour in modern urban life. It typically comprises found light-industrial objects or domestic utensils – from warehouse dollies, lightboxes or balls of electrical flex to cheap plastic bottles, toys or sunglasses. These objects are either themselves brightly coloured, or they provide a support for panels of vivid, often illuminated colours." - more info at GEM. See more;


















Petrit Halilaj

Petrit Halilaj:






Petrit Halijaj
Work from Kostërrc (CH).

“Kostërrc (CH), 2011 consists of a hole (600 x 400 x 230 cm high) made in the Kostërrc hill in Kosovo. This hill is property of the Halilaj family and the original location of the house where the artist was born. The soil taken from the hole is transported to Basel, to nearly fill the booth at the fair. This “land for sale” relates both to many personal and intimate questions which are integral to the artist’s research, as well as to social and cultural problematics linked to the newborn state of Kosovo and its migration phenomena (with a particular relation to Switzerland).
The huge effort required to move the soil also becomes a symbol of the difficulties of migration and integration, of the strong attachment to a culture which may become a self-detriment when preserved in another culture. With the gesture of bringing a piece of Kosovo to Switzerland, a country where one of the larger foreign community is actually from Kosovo, the artist not only tries to move its land into other surroundings – following the dream of many of its inhabitants – but he also brings the Kosovo community in Switzerland a little piece of their land. The process shows all the difficulties related to migration, and the near-impossibility of preserving an integrity from one context to another.” – CHERT Galerie.




gerda steiner and jorg lenzlinger

gerda steiner and jorg lenzlinger:
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gerda steiner and jorg lenzlinger 1




gerda steiner and jorg lenzlinger 3

gerda steiner and jorg lenzlinger 4

gerda steiner and jorg lenzlinger 5









installations gerda steiner and jörg lenzlinger




Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson

Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson:








Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson
Work from Volumes for Sound.

“Throughout much of our practice we have sought to give shape and physicality to the immaterial. Many of the ideas surrounding these transformations are inspired by the processes used to record, playback and encounter sounds.
This project focusses on nested forms, sculptural works that elicit an architecture of sound. These Volumes for sound are concerned with materializing the funneling, folding and porting of sound.
These nested forms stem from objects that are manufactured independently, then drawn together as a result of relationships in domestic and architectural situations. For instance, the triangulation that occurs when a listener sits in a chair in front of a pair of stereo speakers. These forms are also inspired by historical sources such as the famous 1979 Maxell cassette tape ad campaign, the intricate interiors of modern loudspeakers, and artist Kurt Schwitters ‘Merzbau’ constructions.
We have collapsed the listener/loudspeaker triangulation into objects containing several variations for configuration. They can be encountered in spaces as forms that silently evoke the potential for sound, be played and reconfigured by performers using them for sound amplification, and appear in photographs of their various configurations, providing a record of these instances.” – Melissa Dubbin & Aaron S. Davidson via Triangulation Blog