WHAT CAN A DESERT ISLAND DO?
Spheres. Acrylics on antique anatomy chart. 125 x 95 cm.

WHAT CAN A DESERT ISLAND DO?
CURATED BY PAUL PIERONI
Seventeen Gallery
Troels Carlsen

Thursday, November 29, 2007
Tue Greenfort
Tue Greenfort
December 1st, 2007 to January 12th, 2008
Opening November 30th, 6 - 9 p.m.
A poisonous alga imprints a minimalist structure into the paper of a chemical filter; a dissected bluebottle sticks on the wall inside the White Cube – Tue Greenfort’s work questions the value systems of nature and art in our society. The Danish artist is developing a system, both aesthetic and educational, that illuminates the interlocking effects of human activity and changes in our environment, so it is not surprising that his work is primarily determined by ecological and economic subjects. Within a global context, he asks questions about our approach to natural resources, environmental protection and species conservation, and establishes connections between these issues and conceptual art. His projects are characterised by an interdisciplinary openness and quasi-scientific working methods which reveal his extensive research.
Diffuse Einträge (Diffuse Entries) (2007), a work created for this year’s Skulptur Projekte in Münster, is a particularly good illustration of Greenfort’s extended concept of art. On the bank of Münster’s Lake Aa, he installed a liquid-manure container that squirted a mix of lake water and chemicals into the lake. Greenfort was copying a purely cosmetic method of water purification: the city of Münster pumps ferric chloride into an inlet of Lake Aa in order to chemically bind inflowing manure from factory farms and prevent unwanted algae. In the context of the exhibition the farm vehicle became an attractive sculpture, a fountain, a land-art object; it also illuminated the problem of taking a short-sighted approach to tacking the problems of the day. By displacing an agricultural object into the system of art Greenfort creates a certain level of transparency. Reaction to his sculpture has put the pollution of Lake Aa back onto the local political agenda.
Johann König, Berlin is now presenting its third solo exhibition of Tue Greenfort’s work. Most of the exhibits come from the Vienna Secession, where Greenfort’s solo exhibition “Medusa” was shown this autumn.
The work From Petroleum to Protein (2007) displays – in a classically didactic showcase – a round glass container where dark yeast is growing on paraffin. A 1965 edition of Scientific American explains the process: under optimal conditions the fungus transforms the paraffin into a protein-containing substance. During the 1960s British energy corporation BP had the vision of mass-producing meat substitutes for regions with starving populations from paraffin, a waste product of diesel production. The idea of opening up this new market segment was abandoned when the first oil crisis hit in 1973.
Today, by contrast, many post-colonial states, like Brazil, are extremely interested in obtaining fuel from foodstuffs (e.g. sugarcane). The process is going into reverse: foodstuffs are substituting mineral oil, which is becoming ever rarer. Greenfort takes up this issue in Plant Oil Circulation - After Hans Haacke 1969 (2007), which adds a political dimension to Haacke’s early work on natural phenomena. From a red fuel tank a tangle of pipelines extends across the gallery floor; air bubbles propel the oil through the network of pipes. The tank originates from a bus which Greenfort used to chauffeur visitors free of charge to the various venues of the 2005 exhibition “A Whiter Shade of Pale”. He had previously converted it to run on vegetable oil. Other works take up the theme: Kohlweißling (Cabbage White) (2007) shows a butterfly that is perfectly adapted to life in monocultures (e.g. rape fields) and thus to its contemporary natural environment. This tendency to monoculturalisation can be seen in our urban environment, too. Increasingly, urban space is being taken over by global advertisers; whole blocks are now covered in commercial “wallpaper”. The project TENT (2007) is an attempt to reclaim valuable advertising space as an ideological “free space”, in a kind of parasitical gesture.
Tue Greenfort (*1973) lives and works in Berlin. His work Mobile Trinkglaswerkstatt (Mobile Drinking Glass Workshop) (2007) is currently on show in “Art Machines Machine Art” at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. Upcoming exhibitions in 2008 include solo shows at the Kunstverein Braunschweig, Galeria Zero, Milan and the Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples. Tue Greenfort will also participate in the Liverpool Biennial.
Johann Koenig
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Titus Kaphar, Wardell Milan II & Demetrius Oliver
Arndt & Partner Berlin is delighted to announce the opening of the group show Blur on Friday, 30 November 2007 from 6 to 8pm.
Following their latest show at Studio Museum Harlem in New York, the artists Titus Kaphar, Wardell Milan II and Demetrius Oliver will present a selection of new works in Berlin.
We are looking forward to welcoming you and your friends to the opening.
The show runs through 12 January 2008 but please consider that the gallery remains closed from 22 December 2007 through 2 January 2008.
Arndt Partner
MORAG KEIL
MORAG KEIL
NIGHT OFF EXTENDED
***Opening Night: Saturday 1st December, 2007, 7pm onwards***
1st December, 2007 - 12th January, 2008
Opening hours: Thursday - Saturday, 12 - 6pm
Neuealtebruecke
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Stephen Powers @ Politiken (Danish News paper)
V1 udstiller Powers power
V1 Gallery udstiller den legendariske, barske og rammende streetartist Stephen Powers' værker som den sidste, inden galleriet flytter til Kødbyen.
Trine Ross Af Trine Ross
Nu varer det ikke så længe før V1 Gallery flytter til betydeligt større lokaler i Kødbyen, lige ved siden af den nyåbnede café Karriere. Men (formentlig) sidste udstilling i Absalonsgade er en rigtig V1-klassiker, for den præsenterer Stephen Powers (født 1969), der i USA er lidt af en legende, ikke mindst fordi han i begyndelsen af 1990’erne var blandt de første street artister, der gik i dialog med gallerierne.
På gaderne var han kendt som ESPO (Exterior Surface Painting Outreach), men i dag arbejder han med den slags emaljeskilte, der kan få det til at gibbe i enhver nostalgiker. Og det er nok meget godt, hvis der gibbes, for Powers sparker, ved nærmere eftersyn, nostalgien så hårdt, at den taber pusten.
Der, hvor der skulle have været en ganske enkel information, en retningsangivelse eller en letaflæselig reklame, skriver og tegner Powers om livet – set fra den sorte side.
Den dødbringende gentagelse konfronteres i værket ’Wake, Work, Wait, Work, Wank, Work, Want, Wane’ (vågn op, arbejd, vent, arbejd, masturber, arbejd, ønsk, forsvind), mens Powers ligesom træder et skridt til siden, og lader en lille undskyldning krybe ind i et andet værk, hvor han skriver: »Everything is Shit – except you, Love«.
Det er blankpoleret og barskt, meget morsomt og sine steder rammende. Og det er både typisk og tiltrængt, at V1 (igen) kan præsentere danskerne for cremen af street kunsten.
Mario Garcia Torres “Pocket Scratching”
Mario Garcia Torres “Pocket Scratching”
January 19 - March 8, 2008
gallery.sora. is pleased to announce the debut exhibition in Japan of Mexican artist,
Mario Garcia Torres. Garcia Torres presents his works mainly on film, video, photography
and projected photographs as well as in printed interventions. Born in 1975 in Monclova,
he graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in 2005 and currently lives
in San Diego. Recent solo shows include venues such as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam,
Kadist Art Foundation,
Paris (where he was a resident) and Jan Mot, Brussels, amongst others.
He has also, participated in the 52 Biennale di Venezia, Venice, "Escultura Social",
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, "Learn to Read" and "Saturday Live Actions & Interruptions",
Tate Modern, London and "Elephant Cemetery", Artist's Space, New York.
He recently received The Cartier Award 2007.
"So-called Conceptual Art has always interested me. It is difficult for me to explain why,
but I could say that the first thing that intrigued me about it was probably its self-questioning...
there is always a time or location displacement.
Some sort of empty space that allows questioning issues that are different from the ones directly
implied by the piece itself. In that regard, Conceptual Art became for me not just a reference
but also a legacy that I could use and misuse for my work. I think that even if I am very interested
in those kinds of practices my projects are not about them. They only use them to give form to a
larger narrative that has to do with personal and social interests".
Mario Garcia Torres
Published in the 2006 January issue of Neue Review
For his first solo exhibition with gallery.sora., Garcia Torres will present a new body of work related to
time and unpredictability. He will also be exhibiting a new work entitled, "I Promise Every Time" in
Art Atagnes
WINTERSHOW 07
WINTERSHOW 07
Sigga Bjørg Sigurdardóttir (IS),
Annette Streyl (D), Atla,Lærke Lauta,
Ellen Hyllemose, Eva Steen Christensen,
Signe Jaïs, Anders Moseholm,
Frances Goodman (ZA)
Specta
Monday, November 26, 2007
LINA BERTUCCI
LINA BERTUCCI
WOMEN IN THE TATTOO SUBCULTURE
NOVEMBER 28, 2007 – JANUARY 5, 2008
OPENING RECEPTION: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 6-8 PM
New York – (November 19, 2007), Perry Rubenstein Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new photographs by Lina Bertucci. Bertucci's most recent photographic series explores the fluctuating periphery between exhibitionism and marginalization through the ritualized practice of tattooing.
Bertucci's portraits reveal psychological tensions between the pursuit of inner conviction and a desire to seek out trend. The collecting of tattoos, although personal in acquisition, in turn becomes a claim for connection and alignment; or perhaps the opposite, a desire for segregation and opposition to the mainstream.
Compelled to examine this contemporary subculture, Bertucci traveled to various tattoo conventions in the United States and abroad, photographing women ages 19 to 59 both in her studio and on location. Here, Bertucci chooses to frame her subjects in simple, timeless poses that both formally accentuate the female figure and poetically delineate their illustrious tattoos. Bertucci's imagery and execution can be referenced back to classical portrait paintings, yet contradicts the historical view of the 'anonymous muse' by including image titles that reveal a name, age and occupation. This incongruity renders a complex window through which the viewer's perspective of time and era is blurred.
Bertucci lives and works in New York City. Bertucci completed her M.F.A in photography at Pratt Institute in New York and received her B.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin. Bertucci in known extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe, with exhibitions at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Per l'Arte, Turin, Italy; P.S.1, New York; Hara Museum, Tokyo; and, the Chicago Cultural Center.
Perry Rubenstein
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Hiroe Saeki
Hiroe Saeki
Dec. 22, 2007 - Jan. 26, 2008 (closed for holiday: Dec.29 - Jan.7)
Opening reception : 5 - 8 p.m. Dec. 22, 2007
Taka Ishii Gallery is pleased to announce our second exhibition with Kyoto based artist Saeki Hiroe. Saeki,
born in Osaka in 1978, creates drawings with mechanical pencils and sharpened pencils on Kent paper. In recent
years, Saeki’s works exceed 150, and her expression has moved beyond the natural “bird and flower” motifs that
were often seen in her past works. In the coming exhibition, a 3 meters drawing, which consists of 4 panels, will
be exhibited along with other small and large new drawings that correspond to the gallery space.
The images in these works, reminiscent of the “bird and flower” motifs of traditional Japanese painting,
are placed against large unmarked areas of white. The intricate forms, like lotus blossoms or spiders, are
depicted in delicate drawings that seem to express Japanese taste. However, the rhythm of the decorous forms
created with the uniform lead of a sharp pencil has a graphic presence based on the premise of planar expansion.
The ambivalent fusion of Japanese taste and automatic (or self-propagating) graphic expansion seems to acquire a
kind of original expression that, unexpectedly, we have never seen before. This effect is brought about through
the consciousness and sensibility of Saeki as she draws curious natural objects emerging from the paper with
obsessive intensity.
Text by Santo Oshima (quoted from “VOCA 2006 The Vision of Contemporary Art”2006, p.121 )
Saeki received the VOCA Encouragement Prize in 2006, and her work has been featured in a group exhibition
at Meguro Museum of Art in 2007. Saeki will also participate in the group exhibition, “Artist File 2008”
at The National Art Center, Tokyo, in March 2008. Saeki’s work is included in the permanent collection of Museum
of Modern Art (New York), The UBS Art Collection (London), and the Deutsche Bank Art Collection (Frankfurt).
Taka Ishii Gallery
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
photos © Karl Grady
photos © Karl Grady
TRAVELLERS // Daniel Baker / Delaine LeBas / Damian LeBas
Galerie Steinle
Aurelia Selin
Andersens Contemporary are proud to present,
for the first time in Scandinavia Aurelia Selin.
We are looking forward to see you friday 23 November.
The Artist will be present
Andersen_s
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Jakob Jensen
peter lav PHOTO GALLERY proudly presents the exhibition:
Jakob Jensen
black hole bucket
22 November – 22 December 2007
PL Gallery
Minerva Cuevas la venganza del elefante
The elephant’s revenge groups a number of works produced in 2007, most of them realized ex-professo for this show. The series presented in this exhibition are developed as visual essays whose subject, widely understood, is the crisis within the social sphere in relation — or dispute — with the natural world.
Minerva Cuevas practice has always been accompanied and nurtured by her relation with social activism. Her work is characterized for integrating images appropriated and reconfigured via social context studies through different media. The distribution of information, employing techniques from the commercial publicity while transgressing their consuming persuasion purposes, public interventions and their documentation, the use of video and mural paintings, are mechanisms that this artist applies to conform complex projects that expand in time, and whose dissemination transcends the space and duration of the museum rooms.
The title of the exhibition The elephant’s revenge proceeds from one of the pieces presented, and makes reference to a fable narrated through a projection of XIX century slides in the manner of antique cartoons, in which the predictable course of a story that is leaded towards its moral, ends up dislocated.
Silent Spring, gets its name from a book by Rachel Carson published in 1962, which constituted a powerful tool in the banning of DDT in the US in 1972, while it was the main pesticide employed after the Second World War. In this piece, Minerva Cuevas uses three documentaries in video, realized on the sixties, in which several images about the utilization of pesticides are condensed from three different perspectives and temporalities. Zoo, is a collection of magic lanterns that project images in black and white which make reference to the imprisoning of animal species for scientific observation and entertainment purposes, motivated by the human desire of control over the natural and the social.
Among the pieces that are presented for the first time appears Canciones de orden y caos / Songs of Order and Chaos composed by an entomologic collection and a sound installation (derived from the study of insects) which gradually becomes harmonic. Sismógrafo horizontal para terremotos provocados/Horizontal Seismograph for Provoked Earthquakes y Numismática-Arqueología del capital/Numismatics-Archaeology of Capital arise from the research recently done by this artist in the Mexican South-East region, in search of ‘chapopote’ natural sites. The first work consists in a device for the representation of geologic movements, employing crafty technology: a sand pendulum that draws the pulse of the Earth. Seismographs capture the movements not only of the tectonic plates, but also of the oil fields; this means that their function is ‘to read’ the land but also to reveal it with aims of exploitation. Numismatics-Archaeology of Capital is a collection of coins used at ‘tiendas de raya’ from the henequen Haciendas in Yucatan, Chiapas, and Campeche in the milieu and outbreak of the Mexican Revolution (1880-1910). These coins served as a system of exchange exclusive of each Hacienda in order to acquire what was produced within it, then there was no mediation between working force and consume. At the same time the equivalences were out of all proportion: the peasants and their descendants were manipulated and enslaved because of their debts. These items collected by Minerva Cuevas give account of the history of slavery and natural resources exploitation in that region, and their current forms.
By recuperating a number of pre-industrial devices as mediums for representation, Cuevas remarks a decisive moment in human history, in which the understanding of the social sphere separated radically from the understanding of nature, and the concept of progress — as the organization and distribution of the material and spiritual goods — was supplanted by one of growth and expansion for their own sake, accompanied by their counterpart, extermination, which defines the violent relations of power and competition characteristic of our contemporary world. These works are an invitation to inquire on the pertinence of this conceptual opposition, in a moment in which our planet makes clear that we belong to a broader and more diverse whole, whose imbalances affects on each of its parts.
Minerva Cuevas (Mexico City, 1975)
Her most important solo shows are: Minerva Cuevas, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Holland (2008), Phenomena, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2007); On Society, MC Kunst, Los Angeles (2007); Egalité 2007, Le Grand café – Centre d’art contemporain, France (2007); Reconstrucción, Casa del Lago, Mexico (2006); Schwarzfahrer Are My Heroes, DAAD, Berlin (2004); Dodgem, kurimanzutto, Mexico (2002); Mejor Vida Corp, Museo Tamayo, Mexico (2000). She has participated in several group shows, amongst them: Biennale de Lyon, France (2007); Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil (2006); Landings, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2007); The Exotic Journey Ends, kurimanzutto and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw, Poland (2006); Not Impressed by Civilization, The Banff Centre, Canada (2005); Hardcore, Palais de Tokyo, France (2003); Bienal de Estambul, Turkey (2003); Dream Machines, Hayward Gallery, London (2000); Democracy!, Royal College of Art, London, (2000); Permanencia voluntaria, kurimanzutto y Cinemanía Plaza Loreto, Mexico (2000); Economía de mercado, kurimanzutto / Mercado Medellin, Mexico (1999). She is currently realizing a teaching residence at the Escuela Superior de Artes de Yucatan, Merida.
Kurimanzutto
Imperfect Union by Obey
IMPERFECT UNION
Presented by Merry Karnowsky Gallery
Imperfect Union, the largest Los Angeles solo exhibit of new works by Shepard Fairey. This show displays a provocative collection of politically charged paintings, screen prints, stencils, album covers and mixed media pieces rich with metaphor, humor and seductive decorative elements. Imperfect Union is derived from the first line of the U.S. Constitution „We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union‰. For Shepard Fairey, critiquing the imperfect union, far from disparaging the United States, is a patriotic step toward shaping a more perfect union.
The exhibition is comprised of artworks which scrutinize the dynamics of the imperfect union such as the unholy union of government and big business and the dichotomy of symbols and methods associated with ideologies of the American Dream. Fairey‚s artwork comments on underpinnings of the capitalist machine and monolithic institutional authority critiquing those who support blind nationalism and war. Conversely, Fairey recognizes that most individuals would rather suffer than stand up for their beliefs as illuminatingly expressed in the Declaration of Independence with the statement "all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Fairey celebrates the role of counter culture, and independent individuals willing to question the cultural paradigm and advocate peace. Fairey employs the graphic language of the subjects he critiques or celebrates blending
Art Nouveau, hippie, currency and revolutionary propaganda styles. His works utilize bold iconography coupled with decorative elements and, upon closer inspection, reveal sophisticated layers of collage. The resulting pieces are both boldly aggressive and seductively subtle.
Obey


Monday, November 19, 2007
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