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February 2014

FOUNTAIN NEW YORK 2014 MARCH 7-9, 2014

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FOUNTAIN NEW YORK 2014 MARCH 7-9, 2014

FOUNTAIN NEW YORK 2014 MARCH 7-9, 2014
Fountain NYC 2013, photo by Kendra Heisler

69th Regiment Armory, 68 Lexington Avenue, New York
Press & VIP Preview to benefit the Detroit Institute of Arts Friday, March 7, 12pm - 5pm
Opening Reception Friday, March 7, 7pm - 12am with Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Saturday March 8, NYC DJ collective The Deep 7pm to 12am

New York, February 19, 2014 - Fountain returns to the 69th Regiment Armory March 7 - 9, 2014, where it will feature over 80 galleries, artist collectives, individual artists, and performers. This year will focus on engaging visitors through interactive installations and performances, and an emphasis on introducing new collectors to an international survey of emerging contemporary art in the debut of a new series of panel discussions. The fair will open Friday, March 7 with a VIP Preview to benefit the Detroit Institute of Art, followed by the Opening Night Reception featuring a high flying performance curated by Grace Exhibition Space in collaboration with Analog/Analogue and DJ Set by Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Performance art programming will continue Saturday evening, followed by a dance party with NYC DJ collective The Deep.

The 80+ Exhibitors in 2014's New York edition include galleries from Austria, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and across the United States. Among them are founding exhibitors Front Room Gallery and MCCAIG + WELLES, long-time collaborates Arch Enemy Arts, Gentleman's Game, Arcilesi | Homberg Fine Art and Berlin. Fountain welcomes several newcomers, including the Alumni of the New York Academy of Art, New Jersey's Riverside Gallery, artist Visakh Menon, and Christopher Stout, winner of Fountain's Support Our Studios Initiative during Bushwick Open Studios 2013. See initial list below.

Programming innovations for the New York 2014 edition will include the debut of daily panel discussions taking place from 12:30pm - 2pm, with an emphasis on connecting with new and intermediate collectors and art lovers. Beginning during the VIP Preview with "The Challenges of Creating Art in Public Space", and continuing through the weekend with "Women in Street Art", and "The New Muralism", the panels are open to the public and will feature diverse panels of artists and professionals. Special exhibitions will include OF LANDSCAPE, an interactive media installation presented by Parker Projekts and curated by Andrea Wolf of Brooklyn's REVERSE Gallery. The installation will feature work from artists Allison Berkoy, CHiKA and Andrea Wolf, as well as a project by Floating Point Collective which allows visitors to collaboratively build a virtual world with their gestures and movements through its space. DUMBO's Mighty Tanaka returns to curate Fountain's annual street art installation, this year featuring floating canvases from Chris Stain, Alice Mizrachi, Skewville, Cake, Chris RWK, Joe Iurato, Rubin, EKG, gilf!, OMEN and LNY, among others.

EXHIBITOR LIST

SPONSORS

Fountain is honored to donate proceeds from VIP ticket sales in support of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

FLAVORPILL HOOKUP: RSVP here to score an exclusive promo code for discounted tickets, sent straight to your inbox! By RSVPing, you will also be entered to win 1 of 12 pairs of free VIP passes!

The organizers of Fountain New York 2014 would also like to thank the following institutions and organizations for their sponsorship and support: Art Front, Downing Frames, Big Deal Arts, The L Magazine, Artslant, Artcards, Hamptons Art Hub, Art Dossier, Wagmag, Brooklyn Magazine

VISITOR INFORMATION & CONTACT

Fountain is centrally located at the 69th Regiment Armory, 68 Lexington Avenue between 26th and 25th Streets. Subway: take the 6 Train to 23rd or 28th Streets, or the N, R Trains to 23rd Street.
Visitor inquiries please call 631-987-4544 or email [email protected]

HOURS & SCHEDULE

Friday, March 7
VIP Preview to Benefit the Detroit Institute of Arts, 12pm - 5pm
Panel: "The Challenges of Creating Art in Public Space" 12:30pm - 2pm
Public opening reception, 7pm - 12am
Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs: 9pm - midnight

Saturday, March 8
Open to the public: 12pm - midnight
Panel: "Women in Street Art" 12:30pm - 2pm
The Deep: 9pm - midnight

Sunday, March 9
Open to the public 12pm - 5pm
Panel: "The New Muralism" 12:30pm - 2pm

ABOUT FOUNTAIN

Fountain Art Fair strives to provide true accessibility between artists, exhibitors, visitors and aspiring collectors. Featuring art from across the country and throughout world, presented by individual artists, commercial galleries, non profit organizations, and artist collectives, the Fountain model provides a professional and exciting point of entry to all aspects of the contemporary art. www.fountainartfair.com

MEDIA CONTACT

For additional information, images, or to request an interview, please contact:
Andy Cushman | Octopus Outreach | E [email protected] | M 917-744-4042

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AEROPLASTICS, Brussels

HeHe
Fleur de Lys
2009
Installation
285 x 95 x 85 cm
Unique
courtesy of the artists and Aeroplastics contemporay, Brussels

HeHe
Anthroposphere

exhibition runs until March 15th

The duo HeHe (Helen Evans, 1972 and Heiko Hansen, 1970) personifies a new generation of artists who create a link between the sphere of technological/digital art (too self-referential, and frequented solely by the initiated), and that of contemporary art (reluctant to accept new modes of expression based on subverting new informational/communicational technologies). Each of these spheres has developed its distinct circuits of communication and 'diffusion', and common points of contact between the two remain rare. HeHe, winner of the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica (Linz) in 2008 - equivalent to the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennial for digital arts - regularly exhibit in locations dedicated to technological art, and extend their interventions into the public domain internationally (New York, Paris, Helsinki, Liverpool, ...). By mounting this first personal exhibition in Belgium, Aeroplastics offers the duo the opportunity to present their work in all its complexity, and to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of the themes they study and pursue.

These themes are essentially connected to the conflictual rapport between a humanity that is caught up in an unbridled quest for new sources of energy (along with new ways of wasting it), and an ever-increasingly fragile natural environment. On the gallery's first floor, two installations illustrate recent catastrophes caused by the exploitation of the main energy resources from the industrial age: oil and nuclear energy. Is There a Horizon in the Deepwater (2011) stages the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform in 2010, while Fleur de Lys (2009), a nuclear plant plunged in an aquarium, evokes the dangers of atomic energy. Here, one naturally thinks of the Fukushima disaster in 2011, but there is also a manner of premonition: at its origin, the piece was conceived as being part of a series devoted to clouds (pollution) generated by human activity. The title Fleur de Lys harks back to the stylized form of the smoke plume emitted by the cooling tower, but also symbolically refers to France, a country 80% dependent on the atom for its energy needs.

This study of 'man-made clouds' gave rise to a spectacular performance in the public space, namely Green Cloud (2009), consisting of outlining and highlighting (by way of a directed laser beam) the fumes emitted from a power plant in Helsinki. The sociological and political implications of this project are manifold. In this vein, the prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis prohibited Green Cloud being projected against the incinerator at Saint-Ouen, arguing that such would contribute "to propagating, in the public's mind, a strongly negative image of the incinerator plant"... And because pollution is only rarely visible to the naked eye: with a series initiated at the Centre Pompidou (Air de Paris), HeHe proposed to make visible the (mediocre) quality of the air we breathe via coloured photographed urban panoramas. Air de Bruxelles was made especially for this exhibition; the fixed image doubles as an under-construction internet site aimed to archive (in real time) atmospheric conditions as recorded by various sensors - or how landscape joins up with that of digital networks.

Naturally, every actor carries his or its own responsibility in this state of affairs. And although they defend against passing judgment on whomever, preferring the mise en scène (oftentimes humorous) to moralising, the HeHe pair don't miss targeting the current aberration of automobile traffic (particularly 4X4's) in city-centres (for that matter, HeHe is very active in projects to bring back alternative forms of public transport on the old Parisian intra mural railway line). The Porsche Cayenne, outsized, with its 189 grams per kilometre of CO2, is a perfect illustration. Launched in a miniature model producing a pink cloud through the streets of New York (Toy Emissions, 2007), and dressed up with a feather of the same colour (Porsche's Plume, 2011), it has nonetheless to take on competition from the Land Rover Discovery (269 g for the V6 Supercharged model), above all in its spatial variant (Beckham's one-way ticket to the moon edition, 2013)... And it isn't even necessary to drive a car in order to pollute. The simple fact of existing is sufficient: Million Parts (2008) converts the CO2 emitted by our human organism into modulated light within an enclosed space. "The set-up induces CO2 levels that surpass internationally accepted norms for enclosed spaces, indeed high enough for a last gasp!"

Finally, the series "Domestic Catastrophes" focuses on the pollution generated by objects we use in our daily lives, deliberately targeting the simplest among them (pointless to once again raise the question of cell phones or computers, regularly treated in the media): a wall-socket suddenly producing smoke that engulfs the room (Prise en charge, 2011), while a clothes iron, suspended from the ceiling, turns furiously in the air while belching jets of steam. Sometimes, a rise in the collective consciousness results in laws banning toxic substances from everyday life: for those who've forgotten what a room full of smokers smells like, HeHe have produced a delicate fragrance based on organic tobacco, Tobacco Perfume (2010). As for those who judge such laws to be anti-libertarian, they are invited to grill a cigarette under the Smoking Lamp (2005): their act will not go unnoticed...

Pierre-Yves Desaive

AEROPLASTICS contemporary
32 rue Blanche
1060 Brussels
Belgium
T: 32 2 537 22 02

AEROPLASTICS

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Posted in Installation, Mixed Media, Sculpture | Permalink

Lisson Gallery, Milan

Rashid Rana
Notions of Narrations II
C-print
228 x 323 cm
Courtesy of Lisson Gallery, London / Milan

RASHID RANA

24 January - 14 March 201

"My work is often a three-way negotiation between myself, my immediate physical surroundings and what I receive - whether through the Internet, books, history or collective knowledge."
Rashid Rana, ArtReview, 2013

Working with multifaceted, multiplied imagery, Rashid Rana splits the visible universe apart in order to remake it anew. In sculpture, video and photographic prints, Rana transforms snapshots of shop signs in Lahore into abstracted cityscapes or renders reproductions of Old Master paintings as digital fields of colour. Utilising the grid structure, the artist has recently begun to rearrange famous paintings such as The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus (1618) by Peter Paul Rubens and the Oath of the Horatii (1786) by Jacques Louis-David, scrambling these famous compositions into pixelated and codified puzzles.

Rana's splicing and stitching technique can be carnal and violent, as in this ongoing series of brutally lacerated and reassembled Baroque and Neo-classical paintings, collectively known as the Transliteration Series. For his first solo exhibition in Italy, Rana has also reflected the legacy of the surrounding city in his source material, choosing paintings by artists hailing from Milan, such as Andrea Solari and Cesare da Sesto. While the originals are held in the Louvre in Paris and the National Gallery in London, Rana symbolically returns the images to the source of their creators, albeit visually distorted and temporally displaced in the process. Rana complicates and realigns such divided notions as figuration and abstraction, manipulation and reality, but also succeeds in knocking the world off its axis and transcending both traditional and technological means of communication.

Widely considered to be the leading Pakistani artist of his generation, Rashid Rana first came to prominence in South Asia alongside artists such as Shazia Sikander and Subodh Gupta, before gaining wider, international exposure after the millennium. Rana's work straddles both Eastern and Western art practices, drawing equally from Islamic forms as from the Renaissance, French Realism or Modernism. Early photomontages - originally made by painstakingly reconfiguring tiny squares of imagery into micro-mosaics by hand, latterly by using computer software - superimposed hardcore pornography on to the silhouette of the burqa (Veil, 2004) and turned hundreds of graphic slaughterhouse snapshots into facsimiles of Persian rugs (Red Carpet, 2007). Rana's telescoping of politics, civilizations and time also appears in three-dimensions, in works from the series Desperately Seeking Paradise (2007-2011), which splice Lahore's humble streets and houses with the architectural promise of skyscrapers and the slick lines of Minimalism.

Rashid Rana was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1968. He lives and works between Lahore and Toronto, Canada. He trained as a painter at the National College of Arts in Lahore and at the Massachusetts College of Fine Arts in Boston, before joining the faculty of Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, where he still teaches. Recent solo exhibitions include: Labyrinth of Reflections at Mohatta Palace Museum, Karachi (2013); Cornerhouse, Manchester (2011) and Musée Guimet, Paris (2010). Participation in major group exhibitions includes the Kiev Biennial (2012); Fotomuseum Winterthur, Whitechapel Gallery and Saatchi Gallery, London (2010); the Asia Society, New York (2009), the fifth Asia Pacific Triennale, Queensland Gallery of Art, Brisbane (2006) and the Singapore Biennial (2006).

Lisson Gallery
Via Zenale 3
Milan
Italy
T: +39 02 8905 0608

Lisson Gallery

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Posted in Mixed Media, Photography | Permalink

greengrassi, London

Pae White
Genau or Never
Courtesy of the artist and greengrassi, London

PAE WHITE
Genau or Never

24 January - 1 March 2014

greengrassi is pleased to present Pae White's fifth exhibition at the gallery. The work, titled Genau or Never, is a reconfiguration of an unrealized commission originally planned for Gloucester Road tube station. In this iteration, a small portion of the original plan has been processed through a randomizer as a way to recontextualize it within a space with a new set of concerns. While the previous version utilized nearly 2450 tubes of neon referencing ornamental motifs from a mythical magic carpet, the new version is what occurs as that carpet unravels: unencumbered by its former logic and site, the ornament is set free, generating its own logic for its new environment.

The 540 neon tubes used here represent a variation on white, each specifically selected because of its resemblance to daylight. Exposure to this kind of illumination enhances feelings of wellbeing; the tonal shifts that result from the different LUX levels in the neon allowing it to function as a giant "SAD" lamp during a seasonally dark time.

Pae White lives and works in Los Angeles. Recent exhibitions include O R L L E G R O, Museum für Angewandt Kunst, Vienna (2013); Too Much Night, Again, South London Gallery, London (2013); In Love with Tomorrow, Langen Foundation, Dusseldorf (2013); and SUMMER XX, Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2012). Her work was featured in Soft Pictures, Foundazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2013); in Art & Textile, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg (2013); Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (2013); Mardin Biennale, Turkey (2012); San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego (2012) and in Print/Out, MoMA, New York (2012), among others.

greengrassi
1a Kempsford Road
(off Wincott Street)
London
SE11 4NU
T: +44 (0) 20 7840 9101

greengrassi

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YVON LAMBERT PARIS

Mounir Fatmi
Divine Illusion
2013-2014, inkjet print on mirrored glass
30 x 40 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris

MOUNIR FATMI
They were blind, they only saw images

January 30 - February 28, 2014

Yvon Lambert is pleased to announce They were blind, they only saw images, the first exhibition of Mounir Fatmi which will be held at the gallery from January 30th to March 8th 2014. For this occasion, the Moroccan artist will present a series of new works questioning through identity and controversy the paradoxes of representations of the Sacred. By media, as installation, video, prints or performance, Mounir Fatmi continues his exploration of different types of language from mystical texts of Sufism, essays of Spinoza or the controversial writings of Salman Rushdie.

Mounir Fatmi makes visible to the spectator the paradoxical aspect of our understanding of images. With this exhibition, he invites us to take part in sensory journey, going over the simple act of seeing, in a place where the dialog between the physical and metaphysical can take place.

The exhibition will start with the projection of the video Sleep Al Naim devoted to Salman Rushdie; formal reference to the experimental film realized in 1963 by Andy Warhol representing the poet John Giorno while he is sleeping. Not able to directly meet the British writer, mounir fatmi uses for this video the new technologies of image to create the presence of Rushdie in a contradictory status, suspended in a kind of physical abandonment between vulnerability and quiet force.

Who is Joseph Anton?, is a work also inspired by Rushdie which shows us the interest of Mounir Fatmi regarding composite drawings. For this work, ink jet printed on mirror, he uses as a pretext Rushdie's pseudonym - Joseph Anton - composed with the names of writers Joseph Conrad and Anton Chechkov. By building a unique portrait from faces of the three writers, Mounir Fatmi creates for the spectator the visual experience of a new identity, the one of a fugitive.

La Divine Illusion, created with the same ink jet technique, superimposes study drawings from the Rorschach test over pages from religious books. With this series of works, Mounir Fatmi seeks to inter-rogate the spectator about the idea of absolute truth usually granted to religious text.

Also, the performative sculpture Le Paradoxe de l'unicité will stage an obsolete remolded machine, carrying a direct reference to the emblematic work of Kasimir Malevitch, L'aiguiseur de couteau from 1912 which represents the transition between figuration to abstraction. Here, pieces of Arabic calligra-phy will be whetted and then put on the floor. With this performance mounir fatmi wants to demonstrate the relation that exits between the official Arabic and Holy words, from the Quran. Finally free from its written form - which is anterior to its existence - the religious text finds its potential abstraction back, laying down on the floor the dogmatism of writing.

Jusqu'à preuve du contraire (03) proposes a new adaptation of an installation created by the artist in 2012. Composed with neon tubes on which the 24th Sura from the Koran - called "The Light" - is written, the installation presents itself as a hypnotic source which prints the sacred text on the eyes of the spectator. The eye is here transformed with a kinetic effect in an individual memory, which projects itself on the world.

Mounir Fatmi (b. 1970, Tangiers), lives and works between Paris and Tangier.

YVON LAMBERT PARIS
108, Rue Vieille du Temple
75003 Paris
France
T: +33 (0)1 42 7109 33

YVON LAMBERT PARIS

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Fountain Art Fair to Benefit the Detroit Institute of Arts

Diego Rivera, Detroit Industry, Fresco, 1932-33. Image courtesy of the Detroit Institute Of Arts

FOUNTAIN ART FAIR VIP TICKET SALES TO BENEFIT THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS

Fountain Art Fair is once again honored to support the Detroit Institute of Arts as they fight to save their collection of over 60,000 works, held in trust for the City of Detroit. As with Fountain Chicago in September, half of the proceeds from VIP ticket sales will be donated to the institution. This comes on the heels of recent pledges by national and local foundations totaling $370 million, and a $350 million commitment from the State of Michigan. The DIA itself has committed to raise an additional $100 million in order to prevent the sale of any works of art, and to free the collection, the museum building, and associated properties from city ownership.

"Our continued alliance with the Detroit Institute of Arts fortifies Fountain's dedication to preserving the ideal that this profound American collection, and artwork in general, is for the public and not only for private collections. " states Fountain co-founder Johnny Leo.

Fountain VIPs will enjoy weekend-long perks, including exclusive access to Fountain's opening preview, guided tours and complimentary beverages, as well as exciting educational programming to be announced shortly. Fountain VIP tickets may be purchased at the event and in advance online here.

Fountain is proud to welcome back dozens of exhibitors from across the country and around the globe, featuring incredible artwork at accessible prices. Notable galleries include Fountain co-founders Front Room Gallery, DUMBO's Mighty Tanaka Gallery and Arch Enemy Arts (Philadelphia). Fountain will also feature artist installations courtesy of Claire Oliver Gallery and The Lodge Gallery, along with Christopher Stout, winner of Fountain's Bushwick Open Studios initiative and founder of the Bushwick Art Crit Group. A full exhibitor list will be announced shortly.

Fountain's commitment to fresh, engaging programming will continue throughout the weekend with highly-anticipated performances, panel discussions, featured installations and of course, affordable art. Full details including schedules and featured artists will be released over the upcoming weeks.

About DIA - The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), one of the premier art museums in the United States, is home to more than 60,000 works that comprise a multicultural survey of human creativity from ancient times through the 21st century. From the first Van Gogh painting to enter a U.S. museum (Self-Portrait, 1887), to Diego Rivera's world-renowned Detroit Industry murals (1932-33), the DIA's collection is known for its quality, range, and depth. The DIA's mission is to create opportunities for all visitors to find personal meaning in art.

About Fountain Art Fair - Founded in 2006, Fountain Art Fair has received critical acclaim for its unique art fair model and genuine dedication to the artists and galleries who share in its vision and ideology. Celebrated as the first of a new influential generation of alternative fairs, Fountain is reinterpreting the concept of the art fair experience and paving a new path to the future in today's market.

Stay Connected - For the latest updates on Fountain visit fountainartfair.com, find us on Facebook at facebook.com/fountainartfair, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @FountainArtFair.

Fountain Times and Location - Fountain will open with a VIP and Press Preview on Friday March 7 from noon until 5pm and then to the public with a reception until midnight. Saturday March 8 we will be open from noon until midnight and Sunday from Noon until 5pm. Special events, our final exhibitor list and musical performances will be announced shortly so please stay tuned. Fountain will take place at the historic 69th Regiment Armory, located at 68 Lexington Ave (at 25th Street).

Fountain Partners - Fountain is proud to work with our supporting partner ArtFront. Interested sponsors please contact [email protected] to show support for this event.

Fountain Press - Please contact [email protected] for press inquiries.

"Fountain's fun, renegade spirit remains its hallmark. Besides over 50 exhibitors, you'll find awesome parties and interactive installations." - Metro New York

"Fountain has its roots buried in the Brooklyn art scene, but over the last decade has grown to be the bridge for future generations of artists and collectors." - Trebuchet

"The way an art fair should be." -The Economist

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Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf

Iwajla Klinke
Settimana Santa II, 2012
Photograph150 x 111 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf

IWAJLA KLINKE
RITUAL MEMORIES

January 17, - March 01, 2014
Catalogue available (64 pages with a text by David Galloway).

With a cast of colorful characters who would do justice to any repertory stage, Iwajla Klinke infuses portrait photography with the magic and elegance of its early years, when one of its primary goals was to document and celebrate ritual moments in an individual's life. The snapshot aesthetic of the last century and the ubiquity of digital images today has diminished the ceremonial aspect of picture-taking in favor of what William Eggleston once termed the "democratic camera." In contrast, ceremony is at the core of Klinke's approach. Her camera records subjects whose very clothing points to individuality, even to eccentricity, and where ritual is implicit. All of these studies are presented in a formal manner that sometimes recalls the conventions of the painted portrait. (The fact that Klinke's works are printed with pigments on handmade paper further strengthens this link to classical traditions of picture-making.) With minimalist means, she achieves results of immense visual authority.

The elegant serenity of these compositions belies the haphazard circumstances that frequently surround their production in remote Carpathian villages or in Germany's Black Forest. In 2013 alone Klinke was under way in Europe, Canada and Brazil. Her work can be seen in the tradition of the artist-traveler seeking and recording new impressions - much like those German artists who visited the New World in the 19th century in order to create visual records of vanishing tribes of Native Americans. For a single image in her own "Settimana Santa" series, Iwajla Klinke once traveled for 20 hours by bus to reach a small community in Sicily on Easter Sunday morning. By the time she located her young subject, less than a minute remained before mass began - time enough, though, to fasten a simple piece of cloth to the vestry door and photograph a young boy dressed as an angel. Such three-quarter studies, with a neutral background of black or brown, use natural light to create sepia-like effects strikingly reminiscent of a Vermeer painting. Yet what also seems to radiate here is an inner light, a kind of epiphany deeply rooted in rituals whose origins may well have been forgotten but whose spiritual energy persists.

While Klinke has also produced theatrical studies of young people with bizarre accessories or in the contemporary "costumes" of fencers and American-style footballers, her signature pieces are studies of children dressed in elaborate traditional garb, often richly embroidered. For these studies the artist only works within the context of the religious ceremonies in which such attire is actually employed. There is no studied "posing" or extra dressing-up. This, she feels, would undermine the authenticity she seeks. Often a project may seem a race against time, since the use of a particular elaborate headdress in a single mountain village may be the last, fragile vestige of ancient ceremonies otherwise forgotten. Such work has an obvious documentary dimension, though Klinke sees this as secondary. "I don't choose subjects for their anthropological value," the artist insists. "I choose them for their beauty." Nonetheless, the search for a motif may well involve considerable research and cross-cultural savvy. Serendipity, however, can also play a role - as in the recent discovery in Toronto of old-fashioned display mannequins wearing "communion suits" and lace ribbons bearing the name "Jesus" alongside a chalice.

In attempting to decode Klinke's multivalent oeuvre, it is interesting to note that she grew up in East Germany, where her mother's family moved after World War II for ideological reasons, hoping to fulfill the dream of a better world. Her father, a Bulgarian opera singer, died when Iwajla was only six years old. "I had no religious upbringing," Klinke explains, " but I was fascinated by religious rituals, especially those involving children. These always have something to do with the conquering of death, and they are often accompanied by fertility symbols like the crown." The fascination such rituals exerted was deepened by the discovery of The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer's comparative study of mythology and religion. In what would prove one of the most influential texts of the last century, the author approached religion as a cultural phenomenon, not from a theological perspective. Virtually all religions, he argued, derived from fertility cults revolving around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king. As such ceremonies evolved, the figure of a child - as martyr or as bridegroom - might replace the ancient heroes.

It was in Berlin's rough-and-tumble, multicultural Kreuzberg district that Klinke started photographing interesting figures she encountered in local parks and bars. She was particularly fascinated by subjects with all-over tattoos - with "magic texts," as she called them, thus echoing a phrase from Frazer's opus. In addition, she might ask young people to pose for her, clothed only in scraps of antique lace, necklaces of paper doilies, shuttlecocks or white mice, even with epaulets of dripping candles. More recently, she has created three studies of young men with body painting that imitates the blueand- white "Musselmalet" pattern introduced by Royal Copenhagen Porcelain in the 18th century but loosely derived from Meissen's blue-and-white onion pattern. The slender figures of the three young men who "model" the cobalt-blue ornamentation have a touching fragility - like fine porcelain itself. (They are also a reminder that among tribalist cultures body painting frequently accompanied rites of passage, hunting and warfare.) The delicacy of the "Musselmalet" figures is even more dramatic if compared to the rugged cadets, in full Scottish dress regalia, who make up the series entitled "White Crowned Sparrow." (As pupils at a Canadian boarding school, the cadets depicted here suggest that the outward trappings of ritual can also be effectively "transplanted.") What such works have in common and share, indeed, with the portraits of Deaconesses in crisp white caps and bows is that all the protagonists wear a sort of uniform. That uniform, in turn, signifies shared values and goals. Far from suppressing individual identity, here the uniform actually enhances it. In the case of Klinke's startling portraits of "Bee Kings," the helmet worn is not only alive but also potentially lethal.

Despite the impressive range of her more recent works, Klinke's true trademark emerges in her stunning portraits of children dressed in ceremonial garments. Many of these date to the 19th century, symbolizing beliefs "that live on in the form of rituals," according to the artist. Despite the speed a sitting may demand, one senses a very special relationship between the artist and her models. Whatever their age, the latter seem to surrender themselves gladly to the inquiring eye of her camera, while she in turn imbues her sitters with a compelling dignity.

- David Galloway

Galerie Voss
Mühlengasse 3
Düsseldorf
D-40213
Germany
T: +49 021113 49 82

Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf

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Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles

Kevin Cooley
Anza Borrego, 2013
archival pigment print
48x60" ed 1/7+1AP
Courtesy of the artist and Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles

KEVIN COOLEY & PHILLIP ANDREW LEWIS
UNEXPLORED TERRITORY

January 11 - February 22, 2014

The Kopeikin Gallery will present UNEXPLORED TERRITORY, an interdisciplinary campaign charting the limits of human exploration and our desire to conquer and control nature by Kevin Cooley and Phillip Andrew Lewis. Working with a set of themes ranging from early control of fire, colonial exploration of the American West, harnessing fire in the form of combustion to launch rockets into space, to anthropomorphic actions of everyday objects such as box fans, and helium balloons, this body of work exposes a layered relationship between technology's abstractions and certain universal truths.

Encompassing photographs, photograms, videos, and works on paper, this collection of disparate, yet interconnected work is an attempt to understand how everything has the potential to be simultaneously beautiful and destructive. Through figurative and metaphorical gestures and the power of direct representation, the artists' work navigates this terrain without repetition of subject matter, offering the viewer a multifaceted window into their artistic space.

Works by Kevin Cooley in the exhibition include the following. Anza Borrego, a large format landscape photograph tracing Mexican explorer Juan Bautista de Anza's path through the Southern California desert which now bears his name. NROL-65 Spy Satellite Launch, a photographic quadriptych of a recent launch of a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Air Force base, transforming from a plume of rocket exhaust into a seemingly perfect cumulus cloud. Starlight Trajectory is a large scale photogram resembling a comet or explosion in interstellar space, created by exposing photographic paper to a Starlight Candle- a roman candle firework. Images from Controlled Burns, a series of photographs of swirling and imposing clouds of smoke contend with one another in a physical battle between diametrically opposing explosions of black and white. And Smoke Bolides, unique works on paper made by smoke residue, which resemble falling meteorites.

Works by Kevin Cooley and Phillip Andrew Lewis include the following videos and related photographs. We Can Break Through presents a pair of standard box fans connected to a single common power strip. These coexisting machines morph from inert mechanical objects to dancing, dueling entities that ultimately bring about their own demise. In North of North Stars, clusters of white balloons float off into the darkened night sky while black balloons sail into an overcast daytime sky. As both groups blend together on an endless loop in this dual channel video, they bring into question perceptions of scale and distance. The Silent Chorus is a two channel video on small vintage televisions where two piles of black and white dust rapidly succumb to erosion by gusts of wind, offering illusions of purity and perfection as they mix to form a cloud, a short commentary on temporality and the law of entropy.

This is Los Angeles-based artist Kevin Cooley's second solo exhibition with The Kopeikin Gallery, which runs concurrent with Kevin Cooley: Elements at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. Cooley's photographs were recently acquired by the 21c Museum (Louisville, KY), and he is a 2013 recipient of a Center for Cultural Innovation ARC Grant (Los Angeles, CA). Phillip Andrew Lewis is an interdisciplinary artist based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is a recipient of a 2012 Creative Capital Grant for his ongoing project SYNONYM. Both artists were in residence at The Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, (Omaha, NE) where they met and began working together. Cooley and Lewis' first collaborative commission Through the Skies for You won the 3-D Award at ArtPrize 2013 (Grand Rapids, MI) and their exhibition as a collaborative team will open at Zeitgeist Gallery (Nashville, TN) March 2014.

The Kopeikin Gallery
2766 La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA. 90034
T: +1 310-385-5894

Kopeikin Gallery

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Martin Asbæk Gallery, Copenhagen

Matt Saunders

Louise Brooks #6, 2012-2013
silver gelatin print on fiber-based paper
148 cm x 102 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Martin Asbæk Gallery, Copenhagen

MATT SAUNDERS
SLOW FADING HAND

17 January - 1 March 2014

Matt Saunders explores and re-positions the space between painting and photography. The enigmatic black-and-white works on paper were created by projecting light through a drawing or painting so that the subject is revealed on a sheet of photosensitive paper. The works are given photographic expression without the use of a camera.

The works for the exhibition were created as an extension of Saunders' solo exhibition Century Rolls at TATE Liverpool in 2013. They involve uprooting the photographic process and moving it towards a more painterly process. Nevertheless the works stand at a distance from our traditional view of a painting, with their X-ray-like images and the way they almost imitate painting. Yet they are still paintings made by hand, whose expression is displaced back into a photographic form.

In the exhibition Saunders will show the film China in Nixon, which moves through a series of ink-on-mylar drawings edited together into a fluid if elliptical narrative despite the leaps in time and place. The film investigates how content and material can work together across boundaries.

With his fascination with the well-known iconic personalities of the period, Matt Saunders uses existing photos - for this exhibition the Danish actress Asta Nielsen is briefly in focus, through her career in Berlin. Her recognizable androgynous aura, her dark seductive gaze and mysterious attitude made "Die Asta" the greatest actress and muse of the 1910s. Asta has a central placement in the exhibition - in a portrait of her playing Hamlet - and she haunts the whole show. The portrait is surrounded by other well-known personalities from her time and up to the 1980s. Apart from the portrait of Asta all the works in the exhibition are many in a kind of narrative process or transformation.

Matt Saunders (b. 1975 Washington, USA) lives and works in Cambridge, MA (USA) and Berlin (Germany). He has studied at Harvard and Yale in the USA. Over the years he has received a number of awards, including that of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (2009) and the Prix Jean-Francois Prat (2013). Saunders has had solo exhibitions at art institutions such as Tate Liverpool and The Renaissance Society, Chicago, and has participated in exhibitions at among other museums Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Ps1 MoMA, New York.

Martin Asbæk Gallery
Bredgade 23
DK-1260 Copenhagen
Denmark
T: +45 33 15 40 45

Martin Asbæk Gallery

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VAN HORN, Düsseldorf

Raphael Danke, Untitled, 2009, Miroslav Tichy, Untitled, undated

Raphael Danke
Untitled, 2009
C-Print
unique, 20 x 15 cm

Miroslav Tichy
Untitled, undated
mixed media on photography
23.9 x 13 cm

RAPHAEL DANKE & MIROSLAV TICHY
CLICK, CLICK

17 January - 28 February 2014

We are delighted to present the first joint exhibition by Raphael Danke and Miroslav Tichy.
The exhibition's title refers to the "Click, Click" that eccentric, multimillionaire and surrealist Edward William Frank James would eject in order to mark a specific moment he wanted to capture in his memory.

Raphael Danke became aware of his connection to Tichy after seeing one of his own works installed in proximity to a photograph of Tichy's at a collector's house and thus developed the exhibition at VAN HORN. Both artists deal with the quality of destruction and beauty. Instead of wanting to create a 'perfect image', they are concerned with the process of seeing and capturing an impression which does not please the eye by means of technical perfection. Thematically as well as technically, the parallels between Tichy and Danke are obvious, suggesting a joint exhibition.

Danke utilises a mobile phone's camera for his photographs while Tichy uses inferior devices fashioned from everyday findings. This often leads to under- or overexposure and blurry motifs. By exposing pages from magazines, Danke destroys the given image in its original form. Tichy's work, however, is subject to a rather inevitable type of destruction: as he never intended to present his photographs in art exhibitions, he treated them carelessly, the result of which are stains and scratches, which account for the charming and poetic character of his work.

Women constitute the central motif of both artist's works. For decades, Tichy photographed women in everyday situations in Kyjov. This method yields natural, unposed scenes with an immanent, voyeuristic appeal. Due to their technical imperfection, the images seem to oscillate between dream and reality, revealing an individual form of female beauty. Danke achieves a similar effect by making use of pages from fashion magazines, displaying mainly female models, which he illuminates from behind and then photographs. Consequently, the magazine's back and front page melt onto one level. Furthermore, Danke works with collages made from fashion magazines. The resulting abstract forms and architectures turn the original body into a mysterious, non-representational object. Danke's oeuvre should be understood as a surrealist commentary on the contemporary fashion industry whose product apparatus generates a distorted body image as well as constantly new forms and quality of fetish. Moreover, Danke's 'Leg Sculptures', which relate directly to Tichy's photos, will be shown for the first time in the context of this exhibition.

The exhibition is part of the Düsseldorf Photo Weekend, 31 January to 2 February 2014.

VAN HORN
Ackerstr. 99
40233
Düsseldorf
Germany
T: +49 211 5008654

VAN HORN, Düsseldorf

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