Marc Camille Chaimowicz
Desk on Decline
Omar Victor Diop
The Studio of Vanities
Oumy Ndour – Journalist, TV Anchor, Movie Director
The result is a collection of individual portraits, striking and captivating in their charm. Diop carefully chooses backgrounds and patterns to strengthen the subject’s personality and cultural references. Therefore, the colour of kenté fabric flawlessly matches the outfit of casually posing fashion designer, Selly Raby Kane. The clothes of artist Mame-Diarra Niang and model Aminata Faye fuse with an African background pattern. Using this particular approach, Diop becomes part of a tradition of African studio photography epitomized by the likes of Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta. He honours their pioneering work in his own creations, making use of contemporary techniques. Instead of merely creating striking images of an attractive young generation, Diop defines the images during the portraiture process, ensuring that decisions regarding pose, background and props are taken together with the subject. This makes it possible for Diop to come closer to the essence of the portrayed individual, and therefore do justice to the multiplicity and energy of Dakar’s contemporary cultural scene.
MAURIZIO GALANTE
Flirt
DENIZ KARASAHIN
Vortex
Robert Irwin
Double Blind
Double Blind is Irwin’s response to the characteristic features of the main gallery at the Secession. The room’s absence of windows makes it a neutral container for art, its hermetically sealed quality enhancing the impression of a massive, isolated volume. The grid structure of the ceiling and floor underscore the room’s austere appearance and lend it rhythm. The world outside nonetheless becomes tangible through the daylight streaming in from above. The changing intensity of light in the room allows visitors to sense different times of day and what are frequently rapid changes in the weather. The installation Double Blind consists of thirty room-high frames with translucent fabric stretched over them following exactly the lines of the grids that define the room and thus forming three volumes. Depending on where the viewer is standing and on the direction and intensity of the light, the appearance of the installation changes, as does that of the room itself. The door to the garden behind the Secession building stands open, allowing the viewer to see and sense the world outside.
JAMIE CAMPBELL
SHADOW OF THE OBJECT
Jürg Lehni
Four Transitions
Die Installation Four Transitions (2020) des interdisziplinären Schweizer Künstlers Jürg Lehni besteht aus vier an einer Wand montierten Boxen, die jeweils den Entstehungsprozess einer Zahl in einer deutlich unterschiedlichen Farbe und Technologie zeigen. Im Kontext neuer Medien und internetbasierter Kunst, wo die Definitionen von Kunst offen sind und die Beziehung des bewegten Bildes und der Arbeitsstrukturen zum Betrachter im Mittelpunkt steht, rückt der performative Aspekt der Arbeit in den Vordergrund wie die Dinge dargestellt werden. Seit der Postmoderne erweist sich die Frage nach dem Dargestellten im Hinblick auf den semiotischen Aspekt der Kunst als zu einfach oder zu allgegenwärtig, um dem Werk gerecht zu werden. Die Tatsache, dass? hier ist leicht zu beantworten: Four Transitions repräsentiert eine Echtzeit-Digitaluhr. Das Werk entfaltet seine Tiefe am deutlichsten, wenn dieser Einfachheit des semiotischen Aspekts die Komplexität der Performativität des Werkes gegenübergestellt wird.
Adrien M / Claire B
Hakanaï
«Хаканаи» – это сольное хореографическое представление, которое разворачивается через серию движущихся образов. В японском языке Hakanaï означает то, что временно и хрупко, мимолетно и преходяще, и в данном случае нечто промежуточное между мечтами и реальностью. Хотя этот термин широко ассоциируется с природой, в настоящее время этот термин часто используется для выявления нематериального аспекта человеческого состояния и его ненадежности. Он включает в себя два элемента: относящийся к человеку, а также связанный со сновидениями. Эти символические отношения являются основой танцевальной композиции, в которой танцор оживляет пространство где-то между границами воображения и реальности посредством взаимодействия с образами, с которыми она сталкивается. Изображения представляют собой сценическую анимацию, которая движется по физическим схемам в соответствии с ритмом живых звуков, которым они следуют. Результатом перформанса стало открытие для аудитории цифровой инсталляции.
The Dark Side Of The Rainbow
Cinema
The Dark Side of the Rainbow (O Lado Sombrio do Arco Íris) nada mais é do que a exibição do filme O Mágico de Oz (The Wizard of Oz, 1939), feita de maneira simultânea ao álbum The Dark Side of the Moon, lançado em 1973 pelo Pink Floyd. Enquanto a exibição do filme vai rolando junto ao disco, acontece um verdadeiro festival de efeitos minuciosamente sincronizados, dando a impressão de que o álbum da banda inglesa foi totalmente gravado de acordo com o filme, o que segundo os músicos não passa de balela.
Nicola Dale
Model for Ideology V
Webster’s definition of ideology is: “A system of ideas and ideals, especially one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy.” Artist Nicola Dale’s sculptures, performances, and installations are interpretations of this definition of ideology—one of many subjects that Dale explores in her work.
Genesis Belanger
Acquiesce
Genesis Belanger twists and stretches familiar objects into surreal scenarios with her stoneware, porcelain, and concrete sculptures. The Brooklyn-based artist frequently depicts detached limbs, misplaced teeth, and unusually located food in her work. One sculpture shows a mustard-topped hot dog disappearing into a handbag with a mouth-like zipper; another series dispenses rocks from dysfunctional quarter candy machines. This spring, a stoneware desk topped with flaccid pens, a tape-like tongue dispenser, and a drawer full of coping mechanisms was on view in the New Museum’s store window gallery.
Jess Riva Cooper
Viral Series
Navid Navab
Aquaphoneia
Aquaphoneia is an alchemical installation centred around the poiesis of time and transmutation of voice into matter. A large horn floating mid space echoes the ghosts of Edison, Bell, and Berliner’s machines. But unlike early recording, herding sound energy to etch pressure patterns in solid matter, this odd assemblage transmutes voice into water and water into air. Disembodied voices abandon their sources to cross the event horizon of the horn. Estranged, the schizo-phone falls into the narrow depths of the bell, squeezed into spatiotemporal infinity, calcinated, liquified and released: The aqueous voice then flows into three alchemical chambers where inner time is surrendered to the tempi of matter: unbound, yet lucid and sound.
ATTA KIM
Field Series
In Korean photographer Atta Kim’s work, New York City vanishes, tiny nudes appear beside mountains, and contorted figures defy gravity. His photographs manage to be both conceptually and visually thrilling—glass boxes, long exposures, and archetypal settings offer new perspectives on human institutions and relationships.
JALOO
Ah! Pain!
Always the fear of losing
Feel the fear of not being you
But now, I know and it hurts
And I will wander until you know too
I’ve always been a bad hero
Always being saved by you
But now that it’s gone
I know my best is gone too
Ah! Pain! Ah! Pain!
Don’t leave me, I beg you, stay
Surrounds me, comforts me, fixes me
Ah! Pain! Ah! Pain!
You were all that was left in me
It’s what makes me alive without you here
I always feel like it will be
Always time erasing you
And now it’s so late
And the longing comes, invades, burns
I always think about you
I always think to myself “What about you?”
And I don’t want to forget you
And the wound doesn’t close, doesn’t close
Ah! Pain! Ah! Pain!
Don’t leave me, I beg you, stay
Surrounds me, comforts me, fixes me
Ah! Pain! Ah! Pain!
You were all that was left in me
It’s what makes me alive without you here, here
Ah! Pain! Ah! Pain!
Ah! Pain! Ah! Pain!
Don’t leave me, I beg you, stay
Surrounds me, comforts me, fixes me
Ah! Pain! Ah! Pain!
You were all that was left in me
It’s what makes me alive without you here
INVISIBLE CAR
MERCEDES-BENZ “Invisible Drive”
The Mercedes-Benz F-CELL is the first hydrogen-powered car, which is ready for series production. With a spectacular action we draw a suitable attention to this innovation: We made people experience F-CELL the same way the environment does – like it’s not even existent. In practice: We disguised the B-Class F-CELL with mats out of LEDs on the one side and fixed a camera on the other side of the car. The camera filmed everything that happened behind the vehicle and transferred every action directly to the LED mats. The effect: The B-Class fused completely with its surrounding and became invisible for the passersby in the immediate vicinity.
