SMART
Project Space
| 1st Constantijn Huygensstraat 20,
Amsterdam
Dear
Friends,
We wish you
a happy new year and request the pleasure of your company at our first
exhibition opening and new years reception of 2003
Someone To Watch Over Me | January 11 – February 16,
2003
Work by: Slater Bradley, Paul Carter, Alex Cecchetti,
Fanni Niemi Junkola, Tom Molloy,
Eva Rothschild, Claire Todd, Mark
Wallinger
Opening Reception Saturday January 11, 21:00h
The
exhibition Someone To Watch Over Me presents artists whose works encounter faith
and the divine. Employing irony, satire and formal clarity, these artists see
their environment as a culture of contradictions, traditions and quiet
revolutions. In dealing with subjects such as religious faith and atheism, life
cycles, and the relation of the individual to the State, the works are
characterised by violent swings from the abstract and ethereal to the concrete
and the gritty. There is a perennial youthfulness, a naive necessity to ask the
big questions that we try to put aside after adolescence: Where do I belong? Who
do I belong with? What does it mean to believe in something? What happens to us
when we die? Who will watch over me?’
Slater Bradley captures tensions
that lie between a sense of reality and artifice. His unnerving DVD projection
titled “Female Gargoyle” shows real-life footage of a tattooed young woman
sitting on the corner precipice of a tall building, one leg dangling
precariously over the edge. In a close-up view she smokes a cigarette and then
weeps whilst contemplating suicide. Bradley has been enclosed the woman and she
remains perpetually adorning the corner precipice, a gothic creature of mythical
proportions. The artist offers his audience a compelling image that traps and
mesmerises without the relief of sentiment. Bradley thrives on visual tension
and his critical detachment does not fail to disturb.
‘On an Operating
Table’, by Mark Wallinger, projects the image of the light in an operating
theatre onto the wall, shifting the viewer through 90º. As the light moves in
and out of focus, suggesting a drift in and out of consciousness, different
voices, alternately hesitant and confident, read aloud the letters 'I. N .T .H.
E. B. E. G. I. N. N. I. N. G. W. A. S. T. H. E. W. O. R. D' Beneath an
all-seeing divine eye, the opening words of the Gospel of St. John are heard,
read as if from an optician's chart. Wallinger tackles questions through the use
of mythical and spiritual iconography, opening doors into other worlds.
A strong element of political satire underlines Paul Carter’s practice.
Our contemporary social situation renders an image of humanity in crisis -
having lost its faith in systems of belief - it sacrifices itself readily to the
ever-watchful eye of the State. ‘128 beats per minute’ is a breeze-block nuclear
bunker built to U.S. Government standards and houses a moving coloured
projection and a quadaphonic sound system reminiscent of a dance club.
A
series of 300 paintings entitled “Colleagues” by Tom Molloy - portraits of RUC
police officers killed during the course of ‘the troubles’ in Northern Ireland -
succinctly transmit the past to the future by reconstruction of the original
photographic image. Molloy's work is a transformative action detonating the
ephemerality of life, the inescapable passage of time, the fear surrounding
terrorism and the unacceptable certainty of death.
Claire Todd utilises
several mediums in her work to explore the problem of alienation. In an illusory
instant, the film ‘Lunan Bay’ captures the viewer. Todd synthesises an
atmospheric coastal landscape into an allegory of mental escape.
Eva
Rothschild’s sculptures open up portals to another level of reality - one of
mystery, danger, and magic. By synthesizing 60’s idealism with renewed New Age
spiritualism, the artist revaluates traditional ritual and cultural symbols and
at the same time acknowledges the inexplicable and miraculous reality of the
everyday.
An extreme presence of physicality permeates the work of Fanni
Niemi Junkola. The notion of direct and deeply touching physicality is apparent
in the video work ‘To Begin’ which focuses on dynamics of pain and compassion.
This intimate work, shot entirely of close-ups of a woman’s face, conveys a
psychological state of extreme physical effort and magnified
discomfort.
Always there is the recognition that art, like so many other
parts of life, is in itself a belief system, demanding the viewer to assume a
position in relation to it. A positioning that is political, emotional or
psychological; making the participants conscious of themselves and the process
of constructing value and meaning in life.
For further information please contact Jacco Musper, tel +31
20 427 5951 or jacco@smartprojectspace.net