Winter Viewing Room
1 December, 2020 – 10 January, 2021
Giovanni Anselmo
Untitled, 2013, Acrylic and oil painting on canvas,diam.120 cm
Giovanni Anselmo (b.Italy,1934) is one of the legendary artists of Arte Povera who, since the mid-1960s, have radically renewed art by shifting away from traditional forms towards new, cheap (poor) and natural materials. He shares with other artists of Arte Povera the desire to incorporate into art the real factors of time and energy. Drawing his inspiration from his study of latent physical forces such as gravity and magnetism as well as the forces that rule our entire universe, the artist creates sculptures from found objects, from a variety of stones, plants and other organic material.
At the centre of his art, which integrates nature, perception and philosophy, stands the human being: the artist calls on each individual viewer to engage, directly and critically and to confront his position within the natural order and the universe.
Installation views from the artist’s solo exhibition at Bernier/Eliades | Athens, in 2018| Photos by Boris Kirpotin
Gilbert & George
Beard Alert, 2015, 190 x 377 cm
Over the past forty years Gilbert (b.Dolomites,1943) & George (b. England,1942) have challenged the themes of race, sex, death, fashion, religion, politics, nakedness and individuality with performance, film, photography and their now signature format of large-scale vibrantly colored photographic grids.
The art of Gilbert & George is ‘’Art for All’’. In the belief that everything is potential subject-matter and that art embodies the ultimate self-sacrifice, they come to embody their own source of subject-matter. From the infamous ‘Living Sculptures’ of the late 60s onwards to the most recent Photo-Pieces in the 21stcentury, the inseparable duo are instantly recognizable throughout their work as subject and object alike.
THE BEARD PICTURES are violent, eerie, grotesque, lurid and crazed. They show a dream-like world of paranoia and destruction and madness. Their strange sickly colours and creeping, smashed up, absurd landscapes confront the viewer with relentless aggression. THE BEARD PICTURES depict a world bereft of reason, in which negotiation no longer exists. | text by Michael Bracewell
Installation views from the artist’s solo exhibition at Bernier/Eliades | Athens, in 2018| Photos by Boris Kirpotin
Bertrand Lavier
IFFAFA 3, 2010, Neon tubes on aluminum frame, 200 x 350 x 15 cm
Since the late 1960s, Bertrand Lavier (b. 1949, France) has created a complex and eclectic universe creating artworks that challenge and questions the notion of the identity of the artist, and the relationship between the artists ego and the rest of the world, each work of his, is a sardonic dare towards the insufferable codes and rules of the art system and of contemporary culture.
Lavier is a persistent explorer of reality: through his artworks he challenges and questions the notion of the identity of the artist, and the relationship between the artists ego and the rest of the world, each work of his, is a sardonic dare towards the insufferable codes and rules of the art system and of contemporary culture.
Installation views from the artist’s solo exhibition at Bernier/Eliades | Athens, in 2018| Photos by Boris Kirpotin
Marisa Merz
Untitled, 2009, Mixed media on paper mounted on plywood, 70 x 125 x 5 cm
Marisa Merz (1925 – 2019, Italy) was one of the key personalities and the only woman associated with the Arte Povera movement in the late ’60s and ’70s. Known for the unusual use of materials such as copper, wire, clay and wax, the sculptures and drawings of Merz reflect her poetic sensibility and vision for art and life.
By employing abstract, organic figures, Merz creates familiar portraits and sculptures which insist on subjectiveness while emitting both a constantly changing message as well as the artist’s belief that every shape is fluid and should be able to transform into any other shape.
Installation views from the artist’s solo exhibition at Bernier/Eliades | Athens, in 2018| Photos by Boris Kirpotin
Tony Oursler
ReVer, 2020, Inkjet print on canvas, wood, lcd screen and media player, 163 x 110 x 9,5 cm
Tony Oursler (b.1957, USA) stands as a major figure within the evolution of video art. His art covers a range of mediums working with video, sculpture, installation, performance and painting. Oursler explores the ways in which the human body uses its own corporeal mechanisms, especially the face and head, to express identity and project emotions.
The intention of the artist is to invite the viewer to see himself through the eyes of the machines recently created by mankind.
Giancarlo Scaglia
Golden Aérea 2, 2018, Peruvian mixed media on Japanese paper, 240 x 240 x 5 cm
Giancarlo Scaglia (b. 1981, Peru) studied Visual Arts in Lima, where he developed his career as an artist. Scaglia’s work reinterpretates armed conflicts from the 80’s and the 90’s that took place in Peru. His interest for the recontextualization of these events in the arts brought him to question the origin of the artistic vanguards, and to reflect about what determinates whether an action or a gesture is considered “art”.
His new series of works are a quest for some sort of balance in the relationship between history and memory, specifically that of the infamous Peruvian prison massacres of 1986.
Thomas Schütte
Woodcuts (stairs), 2011, colored woodcut print, Ed. 9/12, 253 x 162 cm,
Thomas Schütte’s (b. 1954, Germany) work develops in many different areas: architectural models, installations, watercolors, banners, sculptures in different scales, etchings, are some of the most expressive mediums the artist uses during the last years. Schütte generates a personal collection of techniques and styles, from which draws its material every time. He believes that form, material and color have their own language, which is impossible to translate.
Wayne Thiebaud
Palm Road, 1967, brush with black ink on paper,approx. 20,5 x 31 cm
Wayne Thiebaud (b.1920, USA) is best known for his colorful works depicting commonplace objects, as well as for his landscapes and figure paintings. The artist uses heavy pigment and exaggerated colors to depict his subjects, and the well-defined shadows characteristic of advertisements are almost always included in his work.
Thiebaud's subjects range from deli counters and isolated figures to dramatic views of San Francisco’s streets. His drawings feature the most banal, everyday scenes from a poetic and nostalgic point of view.
Franz West
Claus Thoman-Lampe, 2002
Metal, plastic, electric cables, cardboard
approx. height 220/240,
approx. diam. 25 cm
Ed. 26/100
Franz West (1947- 2012, Vienna) started as a self-taught artist producing small-scale works on paper at the beginning of ‘70s, and has since engaged with abstract sculptural pieces, furniture, collage, installation and large-scale outdoor metal sculpture.
A recurrent theme in his oevre were his pab- stücke or adaptives, oddly mishappen forms created to be experienced as objects for active physical and emotional use, rather than artworks destined to limited observation and reflection. What characterized his work was it’s persistence of obtaining a range of participatory engagement.The artist negate his sculptures’ completion be declaring another artist’s work, quotations from literary, philosophical and psychological texts or the viewer’s interaction with the art object itself, as indispensable components of the work’s final outcome.
The fragmentary character of Franz West’s works, the primitive and scabrous nature of their surfaces and shapes as well as the casual layering and partial overlapping of loud hues, mark a relentless deflection from the ideal and challenge the viewer to a negotiation without intermediates for the identity of the contemporary work of art.