Non-Alignment Pact

source: gagosian

Adam McEwen was born in Great Britain in 1965. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford and California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA. He lives and works in New York City.

Adam McEwen’s work resides somewhere between the celebratory and funereal. After writing obituaries for the Daily Telegraph in London, he began producing obituaries of living subjects such as Bill Clinton and Jeff Koons, thus highlighting the blurred line between history and fiction. He is known for paintings employing wads of chewing gum on canvas that reference the bombing of German cities in the Second World War, and for machined graphite sculptures of such banal objects as a water cooler or an air conditioner. His repurposing of the over-familiar creates momentary ruptures, which in the words of one writer “jolt us temporarily out of our indifference, owing to over-exposure, toward the signs that dominate our daily lives.”



McEwen’s work has been included in numerous group shows including “Haunted,” Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010); “Beg, Borrow and Steal,” Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2009); “The Reach of Realism,” MoCA Miami (2009); “Into Me/Out of Me,” PS1 / MOMA, New York; and the 2006 Whitney Biennial.

McEwen has curated various projects and exhibitions including “Power, Corruption and Lies”, (with Neville Wakefield; Roth Horowitz, New York, 2004); “Interstate” (Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, 2005) and “Beneath the Underdog” (with Nate Lowman; Gagosian Gallery, 2007). In 2010 he curated “Fresh Hell” at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, as the third installment of their Carte Blanche series.
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source: artspace

Adam McEwen appropriates vernacular forms, from text messages and obituaries to everyday consumer objects, manipulating familiar items and repurposing them in new, unexpected contexts. A former obituary writer for the Daily Telegraph, McEwen creates morbidly humorous works that often address the celebrity-driven nature of the media and its broad impact on contemporary culture, as in his series of enlarged, wall-mounted mock-obituaries of living celebrities such as Jeff Koons, Bill Clinton, and Kate Moss. As the artist has stated, “I’m interested in that brief second when you aren’t sure whether Bill Clinton is alive or dead. I only need that moment in order to disorient them enough to sneak through to some other part of the brain—to achieve that split second of turning the world upside down.” Likewise, his monochromatic paintings adorned with gobs of dirty, chewed gum, which reference German cities bombed in World War II, are simultaneously melancholic and comically absurd, referencing the tradition of expressionist painting through the mundane detritus of urban life. Similarly ambiguous are his graphite sculptures, detailed replicas of common objects, such as ATM machines, food packaging, and air conditioners, which recall the funereal solemnity of memorials.

McEwen’s work has been exhibited in museums and institutions worldwide, at venues such as the New Museum, the Guggenheim Museum, the Hessel Museum at Bard College, the Brant Foundation Art Study Center, the Whitney Museum, MoMA PS1, and the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, and was included in the 2006 Whitney Biennial. In 2010, he curated the exhibition Fresh Hell at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. McEwen has had recent solo shows at the Goss-Michael Foundation in Dallas, Texas and the National Exemplar Gallery in New York, New York.
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source: moussemagazineit

Art : Concept gallery inaugurates the third solo exhibition by Adam McEwen, in which the artist will present a set of new pieces. The three works in this show, Conduit, Equalizing Ramp and Instrument, share a relationship to the body. Conduit, a steel pipe inserted through an office chair, imagines a vertical channel that penetrates a seated form; Equalizing Ramp, a 5.5 meter sloping ramp placed against the wall beneath four repeated newspaper pages, is a simple method of moving the viewer’s eye level up or down; and Instrument, a plastic chair with its feet embedded in beer cans and its seat crudely cut out, implies a body which is trapped: trapped by the feet or by the obscure intention behind the cutting action on the chair.

All three works envisage the maker or artist and the pitfalls associated with making. Equalizing Ramp takes the viewer to or from, closer to or farther from, a functional viewpoint: an eye-level that allows easy reading of the page on the wall, depending on the viewer’s height. It appears to be a democratizing tool. The repeated page is a double-page spread from the New York Times that appeared in 2012. The two main features on these pages are, on the left, a story about Jimmy Saville, the British television personality who over four decades was beloved and celebrated for his charity work with young children, and who after his death was revealed to be a serial child abuser and paedophile; and on the right, a story recounting the discovery in an English farmhouse of the skeleton of a carrier pigeon from World War 2, along with a piece of paper bearing a message written in secret code to prevent it being understood by the enemy.

These stories touch on themes that appear repeatedly in McEwen’s work: histories that linger beneath the surface and refuse to disappear; obscured and painful facts that hide in plain sight; codes designed to cause misdirection and misunderstanding.

The title Conduit refers to a pathway and to the artist as a transmitter of inspiration from above. But the smooth channel of the metal pipe that penetrates the chair implies also a disemboweling of the chair’s occupant. If something was expressed by this meeting of elements, it is unclear whether it would be the result of inspiration or defecation, a fulfilling or an emptying out.

The title Instrument has echoes of the Biblical notion of the spokesperson of God: the prophet as humble tool and mere instrument of a higher power. But the word “instrument” here seems to refer to the chair as an instrument of torture, a seat that is itself trapped and traps its subject in some kind of castrating embrace. All three works consider the myth or dream of the artist as creative entity, and examine this idea with a combination of ironic detachment and sincere longing.
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source: paris-art

L’exposition s’organise autour de trois œuvres inédites: Conduit, Equalizing Ramp et Instrument. Elles ont en commun d’engager le corps et permettent d’appréhender le geste de l’artiste, tout comme les conséquences relevant de l’acte de faire. Réalisées à partir de manipulations d’objets, elles évoquent le mythe de l’artiste en tant qu’entité créative.

Adam McEwen présente ici un ensemble de pièces inédites. Ces trois œuvres, Conduit, Equalizing Ramp et Instrument, ont en commun d’engager le corps. Conduit, tuyau d’acier planté dans une chaise de bureau, crée un axe vertical que l’on imagine pénétrant une forme assise. Equalizing Ramp, rampe inclinée de 5,5 mètres placée contre le mur sous quatre reproductions d’une même page de journal, est un moyen simple de déplacer le regard du spectateur de haut en bas. Instrument, enfin, chaise en plastique aux pieds pris dans des canettes de bière et à l’assise grossièrement découpée, implique un corps piégé: immobilisé soit par les pieds, soit par l’obscure intention ayant provoqué la déchirure de la chaise.

Ces trois œuvres appréhendent celui qui fait, l’artiste, ainsi que les conséquences relevant de l’acte de faire.
Equalizing Ramp mène ou éloigne le regardeur, plus près ou plus loin d’un point de vue fonctionnel: c’est un marchepied visuel qui facilite la lecture de la page accrochée sur le mur et s’adapte à la taille de celui qui regarde; une espèce d’outil démocratisant. La page reproduite est une double-page d’une parution du New York Times de 2012. Les deux titres principaux en sont: à gauche, l’histoire de Jimmy Saville, personnalité de la télévision anglaise qui, pendant quatre décennies, fut loué et encensé pour ses œuvres de bienfaisance en faveur de jeunes enfants et qui, comme on le découvrit après son décès, avait été pédophile et violeur d’enfants en série; à droite est relatée l’histoire de la découverte, dans une ferme anglaise, du squelette d’un pigeon voyageur de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale porteur d’un message écrit dans un code crypté pour que l’ennemi ne puisse pas le comprendre.

Ces histoires sont des sujets récurrents du travail de McEwen: récits qui stagnent sous la surface et refusent de disparaître, faits-divers obscurs et douloureux qui se cachent au vu et au su de tous, codes conçus pour provoquer fourvoiement et malentendu.

Le titre Conduit évoque l’idée du chemin et du rôle de l’artiste comme transmetteur d’une inspiration supérieure. Mais l’axe lisse du tuyau en métal qui traverse la chaise implique également l’éviscération de son occupant. Si quelque chose émanait de la rencontre de ces éléments, il n’est pas sûr que le résultat relèverait de l’inspiration ou de la défécation, du gavage ou de la vidange.

Le titre Instrument fait écho à la notion biblique de messager divin: le prophète en tant qu’humble outil et simple instrument d’un pouvoir supérieur. Mais le mot «instrument» semble ici faire référence à la chaise comme instrument de torture, une chaise qui est elle-même piégée et piège à la fois, en une sorte d’accolade castratrice.

Ces œuvres évoquent toutes trois le mythe ou le rêve de l’artiste en tant qu’entité créative, et envisagent cette idée en mêlant détachement ironique et aspiration sincère.

Adam McEwen est né en 1965 à Londres. Il vit et travaille à New York.
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source: galerieartconcept

Adam Mcewen est né en 1965 à Londres. Il vit et travaille à New York. Expositions personnelles : Factory Tint, Capitan Petzel,
Berlin (2014) ; Sawney Bean, The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2013) ; Rehabilitating the Steinway Tube Ducts, Galerie Rodolphe
Janssen, Bruxelles (2013) ; The Goss & Michael Foundation, Dallas (2012) ; Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills (2011) ; The House of
Marlon Brando, Art : Concept, Paris (2011). Expositions collectives : Love Story, Die Samlung Anne und Wolfgang Titze, 21er Haus,
Belvedere, Vienne (2014) ; Wanted, Selected Works from the Mugrabi Collection, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (2013). Projet
curatorial : Fresh Hell, carte Blanche à Adam McEwen, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2010).