06.04 – 01.06.2013 opening on April 6th, 4 p.m. – 9 p.m
Galerie Michel Rein is proud to present “No Singing ”, the third solo exhibition by Jordi Colomer at the gallery after “Arabian Stars” in 2005 and “Le Dortoir” in 2002.
“It's easier getting gold out of men than from rivers”*
The foundation of a city is not necessarily a heroic act. Everyday a new city begins to be built on water, concrete, sweat and money. Some are – almost - a pure idea. There are glass cities that grow out of offices and others made from tin and card that dance to the rhythm of their own inhabitants. On one occasion, a group of outlaws were being tailed by the police when their truck broke down in the middle of the desert. They couldn't keep going or turn back. So they ended up founding a paradise city, the golden city, where the worst crime was not to have any money. That city was called Mahagonny and Bertolt Brecht envisioned it at the time when Las Vegas came about shaping the image of the city that we recognize today.
In Prohibido cantar / No Singing a few characters make a gambling den where they offer entertainment games, tricks, love and food at low prices. The action takes place close to a dusty road, on the same plot of land and during the time in which a great private city was planned, with 32 casinos, called Gran Escala, which was to attract 25 million visitors, and yet never saw the light of day. These images reveal how the city of Eurofarlete thrives, under a blazing sun and strong blowing winds. Fragments of what passed there over two days may help to discern the particular form of organization needed for survival, where everything is on sale at a bargain price or indeed at any price.
The exhibition also presents a new work by Jordi Colomer, Poble Nou (2013). Poble Nou is an old industrial neighbourhood of Barcelona, constantly evolving. This parking is one of the "outlaw" zones often found in Colomer’s work: deserts, but also urban zones such as abandoned roofs, investigated and reactivated in Istanbul map (2010) or Crier sur les toits (2011), or again the wastelands where Anarchitekton’s character walks, delimitating Barcelona, Brasilia or Bucharest. As in Prohibido cantar / No Singing , this "suspended" space, where a urban macro-project never took place, is used by the characters in an unexpected way. Cars temporarily parked – for a visit at the beach – or the mourning group passing by with a coffin, escape from any official planning. Here is mentioned only what "occurs", and we benefit from witnessing a fortuitous encounter, a moment where several affairs should match. A young Russian couple on holidays, who just landed, and the neighbors’ accidental and ephemeral passage. As any fortuitous meeting, this one takes a Buñuel absurd appearance and is broadcasted by Yulia and Andrei’s improvised commentaries, which are translated in the installation in several languages.
Jordi Colomer was born in Barcelona in 1962. He lives and works between Barcelona and Paris. Enjoying a gifted and marked sculptural sense, his work spans many mediums, centering on photography, video and the staging of both in exhibition areas. The variety of mediums called forth by Jordi Colomer's work and the transversality of his judgment are undoubtedly linked to his fragmentary education as an architect, an artist and an art historian. Jordi Colomer’s work was the subject of a solo show at the Jeu de Paume in Paris (2008). He exhibited (among other) in BOZAR and ARGOS, Brussels (2012), Bronx Museum, NY, USA (2011), the Centre Georges Pompidou (2010), AKBank Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey (2010).
This exhibition was presented at AbiertoXobras, Matadero, Madrid from September until December 2012 Special thanks to Manuela Villa, curator of “Prohibido Cantar / No Singing” at Matadero, Madrid. Prohibido Cantar/ No Singing a production of Matadero and CO producciones, Poble Nou a production of CO producciones.
*Bertolt Brecht, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny , 1927-30
JIMMIE DURHAM WORKS ON PAPER: THE SACHÉ SERIES
06.04 – 01.06.2013 Opening 6th April 2013, from 4pm to 9pm
Galerie Michel Rein is pleased to present "Works on Paper: the Saché Series" from the 6th of April to the 1st of June 2013. The gallery has been representing Jimmie Durham for the past ten years. This collaboration has included his three solo exhibitions at the gallery "Une pierre presque volante" (2004) "Labyrinth" (2007) and "Regard" (2011).
Jimmie Durham has lived and worked in Europe since 1994. Equally an essay writer and poet, he is one of the world's most influential contemporary artists. His art and ideas are of crucial importance to a number of artists, curators and theorists, particularly of the younger generation.
His work comprises all mediums, from sculpture in the widest sense of the term, a material apparition in space, to performance, painting, video, writing and very often drawing. His approach falls into a sort of archeology, the discovery but also the classification of the traces left by our predecessors. It is a question of understanding a gesture, repeating it, and reappropriating it to better understand the stages of its invention, the gestures which form the beginning of an artistic act.
During his residency at the Atelier Calder in Saché (January to June 2007), Jimmie Durham produced a number of sculptures along with a series of drawings, a collection of which is presented at the gallery. As always with Jimmie Durham, the drawings are the result of an action, a movement, they appear to be prints on paper, like the marks left by the hand or by a certain material.
Jimmie Durham has participated in a great number of international exhibitions including Documenta IX and XIII, the Venice Biennale (1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2013) and at The Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris for which the accompanying book was published in 2009: Pierres Rejetées . In 2012, a retrospective was dedicated to him at the MuKHA. (cat. A Matter of Life and Death and Singing ).
Icelandic nature is prominent in Eliasson's work, and his artistic relationship with it often involves collection or documentation that is scientific in tone. The country becomes a sensory laboratory where ideas can be developed and evolved into art, as evidenced in the multiple photographic series that would seem to witness a near compulsive need for collecting.
TAKA ISHII GALLERY, Tokyo presents NOBUYOSHI ARAKI - EroReal
7 June - 27 July 2013
Magazine pin-ups aren't interesting, are they? Especially now that they're shot digitally, they lack eroticism. They're doing it wrong. That's why I had to come in. It's not about an ambiance or concept; it's about being real. Not realism, but real?ero-real. I have to say it straight. It's not about nudity; clothed subjects can be erotic.
The approach, London presents JACK LAVENDER - Dreams Chunky
6 June - 28 July 2013
Jack Lavender draws from a world of mass-produced objects, transforming their singular banality through their composition within such structures as grids and metal armatures. Sitting between the disciplines of painting, sculpture and collage, Lavender brings different elements together to create a new entity.
