MEHDI CHOUAKRI ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH 2015
SAÂDANE AFIF JOHN M ARMLEDER CLAUDE CLOSKY N. DASH PHILIPPE DECRAUZAT MARTIN DISLER HANS-PETER FELDMANN SYLVIE FLEURY ISABELL HEIMERDINGER MATHIEU MERCIER GEROLD MILLER CHARLOTTE POSENENSKE GERWALD ROCKENSCHAUB PETER ROEHR SALVO GITTE SCHÄFER LUCA TREVISANI
SAĂ‚DANE AFIF Fountain Archives FA. 0057, 0063a/b/c/d/e, 0083, 0121, 0122, 0123, 0129a/b/c, 0134a/b/c, 2008-2015 Offset prints from books and magazines, framed, pencil 200 x 160 cm / 78.7 x 63 in This work is unique and comes with a certificate signed by the artist
In 2008, taking Marcel Duchamp's Fountain as a starting point, Saâdane Afif began to collect all publications, catalogues, guides and books featuring this seminal piece. The pages showing Duchamp's work are torn out and framed, creating a new ready made. The frames are hung within a grid, drawn with a pencil directly on the wall. It structures the variety of sizes and background colours of the different frames, which are displayed chronologically, like a sample of the general index. The artist is building an archive, aiming to account for a thousand mentions of the Fountain. By now, there are already more than five hundred Fountain Archives. Taking one step further, Afif will design a shelving unit to store all these publications. The installation will be a Fountain Archive without a Fountain, as all the pictures of Duchamp's work will have been permanently removed from the publications lined on the shelves.
JOHN M ARMLEDER Fishes weep, 2014 Mixed media on canvas 190 x 190 cm / 74.8 x 74.8 in This work is unique, signed verso: John Armleder 2014 Fishes weep
In his paintings, John M Armleder uses existing forms as quotes in order to focus on the semantic shift of the once radical avant-garde concepts and techniques in the era of post-modernism. Being part of the Neo-Geo movement in the early 1980's, Armleder surprised the art world shortly thereafter with very expressive paintings in the style of American artist Larry Poons (19121962). For his Puddle Paintings Armleder pours different kinds of colours and lacquers onto a lying canvas, using both randomness and control, hence referring to abstract expressionism while neglecting its underlying existentialist content. Just as he composes his paintings, Armleder gives titles randomly, there is absolutely no meaning or determinism behind them, they are usually sourced in newspapers such as the International Herald Tribune or the New York Times.
PHILIPPE DECRAUZAT Untitled (Grey Grids), 2015 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 70 cm / 31.5 x 27.5 in This work is unique and comes with a certificate signed by the artist
Philippe Decrauzat is fascinated by movement and by the human perception of it. He finds inspiration in scientific and artistic research, in photography, but also, beyond fine arts, in cinema as well as sound. Relying upon an extensive visual vocabulary built from the legacy of Geometric Abstraction, he seamlessly blends a palette of optical effects to "investigate the status of the image." For this new series, Decrauzat uses a classical check pattern, gently fading from black to white. This soft gradation is reminiscent of cinematographic techniques, but, paradoxically, the lower part is lighter, and the painting seems to be floating in weightlessness, holding the beholder in a changing perspective.
N. DASH Untitled, 2015 Adobe, oil, acrylic, gesso, string, linen, canvas, jute, wood support 229 x 91,5 cm / 90 x 36 in This work is unique, signed verso: N. Dash 2015
N. Dash's paintings employ an expanded range of common materials: cloth, oil, dirt and pigment. The dirt takes the form of adobe, a traditional building material, gathered from the New Mexico desert. It functions as a foundation within the paintings, in which the other constituent elements are hung, layered, joined and broken into fields that both cover and reveal. These works correspond to and are contingent upon the architecture of the space in which they are displayed. The paintings thus combine atmospheric and structured elements, their legibility unfolding from multiple vantage points.
GEROLD MILLER set. 289, 2015 Aluminium, lacquered 39 x 31.2 x 2.5 cm / 15.3 x 12.3 x 1 in This work is unique, signed verso: G. Miller 2015
Gerold Miller's series set. represents a shift in the work of an artist concerned with the most fundamental questions of sculpture, relief and painting. For the first time, he closes his sculptures completely to create a rectangular wall object that resembles a painting. Each piece presents an identical subject, elaborated in different combinations of high-gloss car lacquer. In set. 289, the artist highlights the sides and the edges in red, creating a dynamic composition and revealing a relief from a flat surface. This visually concise work shows Miller's further development of a vibrant combination of painting and sculpture, using high tech materials that originate in industrial production.
SYLVIE FLEURY Crash Test 3-21, 2001 / Crash Test 3-26, 2001 / Crash Test 3-38, 2001 Two-component paint on steel each 175 x 100 x 10 cm / 68.9 x 39.4 x 3.9 in These works are unique and signed verso: Sylvie Fleury 01
The "Crash Test" series is emblematic of Fleury's strategy. These monochromes are made of steel painted with car lacquer, but using colours sourced in cosmetics such as lipstick or nail polish. Then, a car crashes into the painting, distorting its hitherto regular shape. The work is indeed the result of an intended car accident. Fleury refers to a large tradition of contemporary art history, such as a hard edge movement, Andy Warhol's car crash paintings or Nikki de Saint Phalle shooting at paint buckets in front of her canvases. It is also a way to appropriate the typically masculine universe of cars and its imagery, whilst painting it red, purple or pink, according to the latest make-up trend, hence merging two opposites: masculine and feminine.Â
GERWALD ROCKENSCHAUB Acrylic glass, lacquered MDF, 2015 30 x 25 cm / 11.8 x 9.8 in This work is unique and comes with a certificate signed by the artist
Since the mid 1980s, Gerwald Rockenschaub has collected an extensive cache of reductionist geometric forms, colour concepts, computer animated loops and industrial techniques which he uses to realise his personal visual vocabulary in a range of media. His work mirrors the culture of logos, the pictorial symbols of our contemporary visual culture, which communicate traffic signs, product advertising or optical guidance systems. This new series of works is characteristic of Rockenschaub's analytical strategy and reduced palette of materials. Black and white sheets of acrylic glass are inlaid in order to build what appears as hand-drawn lines. The analogue appeal of the drawing contrasts with the digital means of its fabrication and the flawlessness of the surface. This opposition, combined to the fact that the picture seems to blend into the wall, can be seen as an attempt to challenge our way of seeing.
CHARLOTTE POSENENSKE Series B Reliefs, 1967-2015 10 elements, aluminium, convexly angled with a short and a long side, sprayed standard RAL matt blue and red each 100 × 50 × 14 cm / 39.4 x 19.7 x 5.5 in Authorised reconstruction certified by the estate
Charlotte Posenenske's work is steeped into the legacy of modern art. She gets an interest in landscape through Cézanne's paintings, as she develops her sense of composition, spatialisation and standardisation with the Soviet and Dutch avantgardes. This brought her to develop from the mid 1960s a new body of works, including her reliefs. The Series B Reliefs consist in modular sculptures declined in a palette of elementary forms and primary colours, conceived to build a dialogue with the surrounding architecture: concave and convex shapes are available in blue, red, yellow and black. The consumer, as referred to by the artist, is free to hang them autonomously, without any given instructions. The works can be presented indoors as outdoors, vertical or horizontal, on the wall as on the floor. Recently rediscovered, Posenenske (1930-1985) was active in Germany during the 1950s and 60s. Considered as a key figure between Minimal and Conceptual Art, she has been influencing younger generations with her concept of modularity.
LUCA TREVISANI Notes for dried and living bodies, 2015 UV print on dried leaves, framed 226 x 97 cm / 89 x 38.2 in (framed) This work is unique and comes with a certificate signed by the artist
Luca Trevisani's work focuses on natural phenomena such as transplantation, addition or movement, creating images and sculptures that redefine the notion of scientific research as artistic and visual practice. This new series consists of floral patterns printed on dried exotic leaves, mounted in a traditional wooden frame, reminiscent of the displays in a natural history museum. Trevisani uses floral motives sourced in applied arts and design, which were created through natural observation and research. The artist reflects about nature and artefacts, and the thin line that separates them. The starting point of the series was a performance, for which Trevisani had designed costumes printed with dried plants, hence the title Notes for dried and living bodies.
This sculpture is a study built from the legacy of Constructivism and Formalism, which may be evocative of El Lissitzky's structures. It was assembled with recycled elements Mathieu Mercier found in his studio: wood, aluminium and plastic, actually leftovers from other artworks. In a playful way, he creates a still life at the junction between the do-it-yourself and the ready made, in an attempt to reveal the influence of the early 20th century avant-gardes on today's consumerism. The shape determines three axes, defining its own space in relation to the architecture of the room, hence inviting the viewer to reflect on the space surrounding him.
MATHIEU MERCIER 3 axis, 3 spheres, 2015 Wood, marble, rubber, cork 33 x 69 x 25 cm / 13 x 27.2 x 9.8 in This work is unique, signed verso: Mathieu Mercier
HANS-PETER FELDMANN Nude from behind Oil on canvas 140 x 90 cm / 55.1 x 35.4 in
In this series of works, Hans-Peter Feldmann enlarges a detail of a 19th century painting. The artist is an avid collector of postcards, and the original motif refers to the ones usually sold in a museum, reminiscing both his passions for photography and art history. This series also reminds another work of his Triptych of seated women, a large collage overviewing female depiction throughout modern western culture. For this specific painting, paradoxically, the artist uses the traditional oil technique to zoom in the picture like a camera would do, in a way to challenge our connection to images at the age of digital reproduction. The cropped body becomes anonymous, symptomatic of Feldmann's poetry of the everyday. Of course, he is also interested in the sheer beauty of the nude, as well as the cool and deliberate sensuality of the sitter. Furthermore, the title Nude from behind reinforces this idea of namelessness by merely describing the painting.
Front cover: Charlotte Posenenske Series B Reliefs, 1967-2015 (detail) Title page: Sylvie Fleury Crash Test 3-38, 2001 (detail) Opposite page: Saâdane Afif Fountain Archives FA. 0057, 0063a/b/c/d/e, 0083, 0121, 0122, 0123, 0129a/b/c, 0134a/b/c, 2008-2015 (detail)
Back cover: Hans-Peter Feldmann Nude from behind (detail)
This catalogue was published on the occasion of Art Basel Miami Beach December 2 to 6, 2015 Booth E12 – also available as eBook on www.mehdi-chouakri.com Booth design by David Saik, Berlin Photographs by Nat Ward, New York Jan Windszus, Berlin Jens Ziehe, Berlin All works © the artists and courtesy Mehdi Chouakri Gallery 1000 copies Printed by Spree Druck, Berlin
Galerie Mehdi Chouakri Invalidenstrasse 117 10115 Berlin T + 49 30 28 39 11 53 F + 49 30 28 39 11 54 galerie@mehdi-chouakri.com www.mehdi-chouakri.com
MEHDI CHOUAKRI