9 September - 22 October 2011 Opening: 9 September 2011, 6 - 9 pm Gallery 1
The art of Ryan Gander (b. 1976, Chester, GB) calls for his audience to be highly curious, playful and intellectually flexible. His works are visually surprising and attractive and entice the audience to investigate the reason for their allure. By striving to getting to the bottom, the viewer gets drawn into a vortex of humorous or serious associations, references and visual or linguistic innuendos that lead into a labyrinth with no end or exit. Rhetorical or formal wit serves as bait, and by engaging further one enters an eerie game of uncertainties and relativizations. Ryan Gander takes his penchant for deconstruction and re-combination to extremes and penetrates all aspects of the world, practically the whole spectrum from personal and familiar experiences to the work of his artist colleagues and friends, from art historical references to social and everyday phenomena.
Ryan Gander lives and works in London. Solo exhibitions of his work were shown at important international institutions, among them the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; MUMOK, Vienna; CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco; South London Gallery, Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Villa Arson, Nice and Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich. He won many awards and is also represented at this year’s Biennale di Venezia – Illuminations / Illuminazioni.
Stephan Balkenhol
extended until 22 October 2011 Gallery 2
Stephan Balkenhol’s work is focused on the objective representation of the human figure. His sculptures, mostly carved from wood with traditional tools, invariably reveal traces of their creation process and materiality, this tension between roughness and precision being a characteristic trait of his œuvre. Balkenhol’s creations exhibit proximity to portraiture, but are never stylized in an expressionistic or naturalistic direction. Liberated from their context, without any identifiers of subjective orientation or emotional state and free of personal or sociological references, his figures appear to be archetypal. They are shown in a state of indifference and allow for the viewer to see in them whatever he chooses to. Especially in his sculptures in public space, the average contemporary person becomes aggrandized, raised to monumental status. Balkenhol offers with his sculptures an exemplary formulation for modern man. The universal indeterminacy of his works emblematizes an essentially postmodern attitude towards life. Stephan Balkenhol is one of the internationally most important German sculptors whose work has been honored in many museum exhibitions. His sculptures are of a distinctly recognizable style and are exhibited in prominent collections and public space where they maintain the power to fascinate. Born in Fritzlar, Hessen, Balkenhol lives and works in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Meisental, France.
Johnen Galerie Marienstrasse 10 10117 Berlin [email protected] Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am - 6 pm
