LONG GONE - Von weit her nah heran
LONG GONE – CLOSE UP FROM FAR AWAY
For our joint exhibition project we invited three artists who come from central Switzerland, but have lived in other parts of the country or abroad for some time now. The reasons for their departures vary: University, studio residencies, curiosity and the need for a change of scene, to name just a few.
Ian Annüll – Exchanged and combined
A moth the size of a human palm, perhaps found in the rainforest of Borneo, pinned and placed behind glass. A small abstract painting in earthy colours, a large canvas dominated by horizontal blocks of colour, at its centre a large hole revealing the wall behind it. Painted wooden masks form a kind of frieze below the ceiling. These artefacts and various others hang on a dark grey wall. In the lower right third of the wall we read the tagline NoName, white on grey, as a further element in and title for the whole installation. Various painted cards that turn out to be invitations, lie in display cases along the opposite wall and captivate with their colourfulness and the oscillation between coarse application of colour and fine brush work.
Ian Annüll borrows his visual elements from various different worlds. Exchange goods from second hand shops are combined with signifiers of consumption goods. The artist’s work is hard to categorize; he cleverly points out how contemporary art functions as a brand and ironically references economic and political-cultural systems. His work operates by twists and turns, returns and renewals of meaning within our often very rigid society.
Isabelle Krieg – Played and won
Wooden logs are piled up as if for a bonfire in the middle of the exhibition space. Subtle stripes of black, grey and white cross the whole wooden structure and cover the rough, fibrous material with a fine veil. Inspired by the delicate marks that near-empty colour cartridges leave on paper, Isabelle Krieg transferred this formal observation into her object Woodstock – going grey. A non-greying version of Woodstock was shown at the Museo Cantonale d’Arte in Lugano in 2012 and at the Gallery Luciano Fasciati in Chur in 2011. Tongue in cheek, the artist engages with the other works in the exhibition space as well as with the title of the exhibition Long gone.
In the piece Black Sunday, Isabelle Krieg presents baking products: large and small Swiss braided yeast breads that were left in the oven for too long hang from the ceiling, black and glistening. When Duchamp called Alexander Calder's suspended metal elements mobiles, did he ever suspect that barely a century later an artist would be cheeky enough to let a few loaves of bread swing in the wind?
Isabelle Krieg’s work is characterized by the joy in playful experimentation with reality; her frequently formally seductive work eludes definitive interpretation. Using poetic language, the artist takes us on a journey, from the real world to the fictional, on a permanent commute between Dresden, Berlin and Zurich.
Damian Jurt – Torn and reassembled
Her gaze turned aside, the curly hair messed up and lips slightly parted: this female figure or her staged alter ego is found on all three of the photographs. It is not the same person; sometimes she appears in a group of several, similarly dressed and made-up women. Two of the photographs display the female body openly: the young women, whose bodies conform to those in glossy magazines, wear white stockings, high heels and nothing but their underwear above the waist. One image shows the backs of two women, implying a vulnerability that contrasts strongly with the other poses. All three photographs were at some point ripped apart and then put back together, leaving small gaps between the pieces. They are not just torn but show other traces of damage, small stains, creases and so on. Their origin is left unknown, just as we can only guess at the circumstances that lead to the destruction of the intact surface. The discourse originally present in the images – the documentation of a protest action or performance – remains visible and readable despite the damage.
Damian Jurt develops numerous exhibitions, publications and other curated formats alongside his artistic practice. He has repeatedly engaged with artefacts and questions of authorship. The work Ohne Titel (Untitled), 2012 engages typical topics of new art history, such as the appropriation, archiving and presentation of visual material. The traditional roles of artists and curator, the exhibited and the exhibitor, begin to disappear, posing critical questions about the structures of the art market.