|
 Light and Transition Galerie Caprice Horn/Berlin May 2 – June 12, 2008 Featuring Norbert Brunner, Carmen Calvo, Matthew Carver, Daniel & Geo Fuchs, Alona Harpaz, Atta Kim, Maleonn, Maslen & Mehra, Nicholas & Sheila Pye, Nadine Rennert, Mitra Tabrizian, Sarah Small, Li Wei, Etienne Lafrance and Chul- Hyun Ahn. One of the central texts in philosophy is Platon’s allegory of the cave. The man in the cave is tied to a rock in front of one of the caves’s walls and all he ever sees in life are the shadows of those who walk in front of the fire behind his back. These shadows are the only real things in his life, they are his reality for he does not see the living figures who are moving behind his back. He does not know that they exist, that a true world of living human beings exists. Platon introduces light as a transmitter of the real being and a basis for all our perceptions. It throws the shadows on the walls and acts as an intermediate between the world of ideas and the world of things. In this allegory, it is the affirmation of life and it takes our attention away from the pure empirical to what lies behind our small world. But it is also a hint of life’s and our own caducity – the light gives life and it also leads to the end of it. The artists in the exhibition “Light and Transition” all focus on the concept of light and transience in their works. The spanish artist Carmen Calvo shows us in her fading photographs how images created with light, can also be destroyed by it. Light’s ability to create illusions is what fascinates the Chinese artist Li Wei: he shows in his performative works the possibility of manipulating an image simply by redirecting the light through mirrors. Very noticeable in this context is also the body of work that the artist duo Maslen & Mehra show: huge, free standing light boxes (used as advertising space in the London tube) who make it possible to see the image only by the help of the light that comes from the inside of the box. Additionally, the artists place reflective figures in the landscapes of their photos who mirror their surroundings and introduce more than only one line of sight. A publication ,‘Mirrored’ by Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg, will appear next month. The presence of time in narration is what occupies Iranian artist Mitra Tabrizian, whose photographs will be shown in a Solo Show in the Tate Britain from June 6 – August 10, 2008 and in a Group Show at the Tate Modern in London. Gallery Caprice Horn will feature her in a Solo Show “Beyond the Limits” from June 13 – August 23, 2008. Just like her, the artists Atta Kim, Maleonn and Nicholas & Sheila Pye approach the subject of creating sublime and narrative realities with the delicate use of light. Unrealistic and partly disquieting settings ask us - just as Platon did - the philosophical question as to what is real in the world that we perceive. To see the light – installations by the artists Norbert Brunner and Nadine Rennert approach the subject of seeing. The huge plastic tunnel by Austrian artist Brunner simulates with the help of a projector the human eye, the central organ of our seeing sense. Nadine Rennert’s sculpture of the little boy in his army suit who stares at the circle of light created by his pocket lamp installs the light as a place of hope. In the circle and through the eye of the observer, a new world is created that has to be explored. A publication ‘Dust and its counterweight’ by Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg appears this week. Galerie Caprice
Horn
|
|