Dana Schutz, Surgery, 2004, Courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery, New York. |
As the World Turns, Contemporary Art with a Dark World View |
Nathalie Djurberg, Hungry Hungry Hippoes, 2007, DVD, 4:19, Edition of 4, Courtesy of Zach Feuer Gallery, New York.
Anri Sala, Ghostgames, 2002, Photo: Anri Sala, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zürich London.
Michaël Borremans, The Pupils, 2001, 70x60 cm, oil on canvas,, Courtesy Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp.
Ellen Gallagher, Watery Ecstatic, 2007, Detail, Courtesy the artist, Hauser & Wirth, Zürich, London, Photo: Mike Bruce.
Tom McCarthy, General Secretary, International Necronautical Society, Photo: Eugenie Dolberg. |
Moderna Museet Eclipse, a darkening of the sun, describes both a situation in society where many of the ideals of the Enlightenment appear to be abandoned — and an artistic approach. The artists in this exhibition of international contemporary art share a lack of faith in a didactically enlightening culture; hence the metaphor in the title. The artists in Eclipse work with installation, sculpture, performance, video projection and painting, exploring and portraying fields that are irrational, dark or politically incorrect. Several of them have a fascination for the absurd sides of life, resulting in refreshingly humorous works. Existential issues concerning the conditions of mankind are the starting-point. The exhibition pursues two lines: one muted, mystical, constrained; one more anarchic and burlesque. A few of the most prominent contemporary artists are featured: Lucas Ajemian, Michaël Borremans, Nathalie Djurberg, Ellen Gallagher, Tom McCarthy/INS (International Necronautical Society), Paul McCarthy, Mike Nelson, Anri Sala and Dana Schutz. Several of the artists will be showing entirely new works. The work of Lucas Ajemian is an ongoing examination of systems and identities, often dealing with issues of nationality and the relationship between human beings and society. Through a range mediums, he is able to explore these constructs while presenting ephemeral concerns in a highly tactile manner, that is, relating to a sense of time and space in a way that seems familiar to the viewer. For his first New York solo show, Ajemian's compulsory activity of determining his greater surroundings through shifting perceptual states, from familiarity to absurd disassociations, attempts to draw emphasis away from what people know to how they know it in manner and intention. Michaël Borremans (born 1963) paints portraits of somber young men. In 2004 he participated in Manifesta 5, The European Biennial of Contemporary Art. In the same year a solo exhibition of his drawings opened in October at the Museum Für Gegenwartskunst in Basel. This show travelled to S.M.A.K., Gent and Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio. The painting show The Performance was shown at S.M.A.K. Gent, toured to the Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, and The Royal Hibernian Academy, Gallagher Gallery, Dublin during 2005. In 2006 Borremans had solo shows in New York (David Zwirner Gallery) and Paris (La Maison Rouge). In 2007 there was a solo show at De Appel in Amsterdam, focusing on his cinematic works.His works are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Nathalie Djurberg's (born 1978, Sweden) animations bring to life stories and scenarios from the furthest reaches of her subconscious mind. The evil nature of her characters’ actions is somehow made acceptable and even humorous because they have been made from plasticine. In Dumstrut a lone figure stands in the corner of a room wearing a dunce’s hat. The same figure then appears in a domestic setting tormenting a cat. The work never attempts to hide the methods of its own construction, thus heightening the artificiality of the entire narrative. Djurberg offers no moral messages in her videos and seems to delight in exposing the viewer to the wickedness of her creations. Ellen Gallagher (b. 1965, Providence, Rhode Island) lives and works in New York and Rotterdam, Holland. She attended Oberlin College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Repetition and revision are central to Gallagher’s treatment of advertisements that she appropriates from popular magazines like Ebony, Our World, and Sepia and uses in works like eXelento (2004) and DeLuxe (2004-05). Initially, Gallagher was drawn to the wig advertisements because of their grid-like structure. Later she realized that it was the accompanying language that attracted her, and she began to bring these "narratives" into her paintings — making them function through the characters of the advertisements as a kind of chart of lost worlds. Tom McCarthy was born in 1969 and lives in London. He is known for the reports, manifestos and media interventions he has made as General Secretary of the International Necronautical Society (INS), a semi-fictitious avant-garde network. His nonfiction book Tintin and the Secret of Literature was published by Granta Books in 2006. Remainder is his first novel. Paul McCarthy (b 1945, Salt Lake City) is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. McCarthy studied art at the University of Utah in 1969. He went on to study at the San Francisco Art Institute receiving a BFA in painting. In 1972 he studied film, video, and art at the University of Southern California receiving an MFA. Since 1982 he has taught performance, video, installation, and performance art history at the University of California, Los Angeles. McCarthy currently works mainly in video and sculpture. Formally trained as a painter, McCarthy's main interest lies in everyday activities and the mess created by them. Much of his work in the late 1960s, such as Mountain Bowling (1969) and Hold an Apple in Your Armpit (1970) are similar to the work of Happenings founder Allen Kaprow, with whom McCarthy had a professional relationship. Mike Nelson is a contemporary British installation artist who was nominated twice for the Turner Prize. Nelson was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001 for an installation which replicated a storeroom. The prize was won by Martin Creed. He was nominated again in 2007, when the winner was Mark Wallinger. His installations exist only for the time period of the exhibition which they were made for. They are generally extended labyrinths, which the viewer is free to find their own way through, and in which the locations of the exit and entrance are often difficult to determine. His The Deliverance and the Patience in a former brewery on the Giudecca was in the 2001 Venice Biennale. In September 2007, his exhibition A Psychic Vacuum was held in the Essex Street Market, New York. Anri Sala (born 1974, Tirana, Albania) studied art at the Albanian Academy of Arts from 1992-1996. He has also studied video at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs, Paris and film directorion in Le Fresnoy-Studio National des Arts Contemporains, Tourcoing. He lives and works in Paris, France. His primary medium is that of video. His video installation called Dammi i colori (Give me the colors) is on display at Tate Modern in London. The installation reflects on Tirana's transformation in 2003 by means of colors. The installation includes a conversation with Tirana's mayor, Mr. Edi Rama, a personal friend of the artist's and the force behind this transformation. Dana Schutz (b.1976), a painter in New York, graduated with a BFA from Cleveland Institute of Art in 2000 and an MFA from Columbia University in 2002. She grew up in suburban Michigan. Her work is present in major museums in North America and Europe, as well as in several important private collections. A number of her works are in the Saatchi Gallery and a large canvas titled How we cured the plague, 2007 is currently on display in the permanent collection of the prestigious Mart Museum (Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Trento e Rovereto) in Italy. She exhibits at Zach Feuer Gallery in New York and her first European solo show, Self Eaters and the People Who Love Them, was in Paris's Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin. Her bright, fantastical works have been compared to Currin, Goya, and Katz. According to Magnus af Petersens, curator, Moderna Museet, “Eclipse is both a statement and a question about art today. If artists in the 1990s were preoccupied with reality, a stance that could be expressed, for instance, in documentary strategies and relational aesthetics, many artists today are more interested in speculation, in reflecting the incomprehensible. It may sound drastic to say that we are living in a dark age. But after 11 September, in an era of political upheaval, we are seeing a rise in intolerance. The exhibition highlights art that is not political in a simplistic way, but asserts its right to say the wrong thing, art that uses the license of fiction to experiment.” In conjunction with the exhibition, a catalogue will be published, with essays by Magnus af Petersens, INS — International Necronautical Society, and others. The INS essay, written by the group’s General Secretary Tom McCarthy, will also form part of their work shown in Eclipse. |
Mike Nelson, Amnesiac Shrine or Double coop displacement, 2006, Installation view, Matt's Gallery, Courtesy of the artist, Matt´s Gallery, London and Galleria Franco Noero, Torino. |
