Marie José Burki
10 Jan - 09 Feb 2013
MARIE JOSÉ BURKI
10 January - 9 February 2013
Albert Baronian is pleased to announce the third exhibition of Swiss-born and Brussels-based artist Marie José Burki at the gallery. Entitled “Une Place sur la Terre” the exhibition presents a number of new works following out of Burki’s concern with aspects of visualizing time and the representative quality of the image, both in video as in photography.
The first series of works presented at the gallery engages with the genre of the portrait. For MJB the portrait captures a moment’s time of a person and the photograph works as a time capsule, locking up this instant as if time could be trapped.
Upon entering the gallery, at your left-hand side one can perceive the multi-parted series of portraits of adolescent girls spread over a cornered wall, entitled “AOS”. In total the series exists out of 44 photographs, here are only shown 21 which are grouped by 2, 3 or 4. The series shows three different characters who are portrayed in a similar way at various moments. This is enhanced by placing the photographs side by side, for example three adjacent photographs showing the same pose but different girls and thus different moments.
In analogy with this another series of portraits is mounted on the back wall of the gallery, this time of various birds that were filmed in nature reserves and zoos. The video installation “Exposure : figure of speech” exists out of 4 screens showing 4 autonomous video works assembled with a succession of images. Each video shows a number of different birds in a sequence, framing only their heads moving from one side to the other. As with the portraits of the adolescent girls, each image shows the same but each bird is different, whether a duck, an owl, a falcon or an eagle. The birds however have no sense of their appearance, nor even of the fact they are being filmed. For MJB animals are revelatory of how humans interrelate and behave. As living beings, they die as humans do, lacking only the act of speech, but nevertheless earning their position on earth (as is recited in the title of the exhibition “Une Place sur la Terre”, as well as in an ink drawing by MJB).
The second type of works on show here are the series “Constellations” and two video works, both engaging with the human body.
At the entrance of the gallery on the right the video “In der Nähe” displays an array of images taken by MJB on a rock festival in Belgium. The viewer can see close-ups of people sitting in the grass and hanging out. By filming only the details of certain persons e.g. painted nails, a tattoo on the back, jewellery etc. one can imagine a whole personality or at least how they appear to be. Thus the video becomes an account of appearance, emphasizing the way a subject stages oneself in front of a camera. At the back of the gallery we find another video from the same situation under the title “In der Nähe 2” projected on the wall.
In the small room a series of 9 photographic prints and one video on a screen is shown under the title “Constellations”. This series combines different types of source images such as photographic reproductions of paintings by Manet and newspaper images that have been re-photographed by the artist with MJB’s own photographs taken from her archive between 2002-2012. All photographs are chosen individually but function as a suite, alternating images that appear either as living figures or as reproductions, all of them focusing on the face or the hands. This creates different layers: while the painted faces are represented by the painting, the living faces are represented by the photograph, out of this a third moment takes shape where all the faces are taken up in the video.
The sequence of images functions on resemblance, either on a visual basis or by certain objects that are repeated all along. The images are fragmented: as the video goes along we first get a glimpse of a face, later on a hand, or another body part of the same character. As such MJB attempts to go at the inside of things as for her the world and its interrelations are to be found in the details.
In the garden the visitor will discern a brightly glowing orange neon on the patio floor. Together with the ink drawing this forms the third strand of works: text-based works. MJB remembers sentences she once heard or read, for example the reflections of St. Augustine on time, turning them into a thing of its own. The idea that the universe is incessantly in expansion fascinates her and her recent drawings are to be viewed in this light. Neither an image nor a graphic work, they are made by atomizing ink over paper in a controlled random way. A line of text is screen printed on top expressing the passing of time. In the garden the neon extends itself as a thread of life, stating two handwritten words: “un jour”. Referring to the specific time unity of 24 hours the words also holds the promise of the future.
10 January - 9 February 2013
Albert Baronian is pleased to announce the third exhibition of Swiss-born and Brussels-based artist Marie José Burki at the gallery. Entitled “Une Place sur la Terre” the exhibition presents a number of new works following out of Burki’s concern with aspects of visualizing time and the representative quality of the image, both in video as in photography.
The first series of works presented at the gallery engages with the genre of the portrait. For MJB the portrait captures a moment’s time of a person and the photograph works as a time capsule, locking up this instant as if time could be trapped.
Upon entering the gallery, at your left-hand side one can perceive the multi-parted series of portraits of adolescent girls spread over a cornered wall, entitled “AOS”. In total the series exists out of 44 photographs, here are only shown 21 which are grouped by 2, 3 or 4. The series shows three different characters who are portrayed in a similar way at various moments. This is enhanced by placing the photographs side by side, for example three adjacent photographs showing the same pose but different girls and thus different moments.
In analogy with this another series of portraits is mounted on the back wall of the gallery, this time of various birds that were filmed in nature reserves and zoos. The video installation “Exposure : figure of speech” exists out of 4 screens showing 4 autonomous video works assembled with a succession of images. Each video shows a number of different birds in a sequence, framing only their heads moving from one side to the other. As with the portraits of the adolescent girls, each image shows the same but each bird is different, whether a duck, an owl, a falcon or an eagle. The birds however have no sense of their appearance, nor even of the fact they are being filmed. For MJB animals are revelatory of how humans interrelate and behave. As living beings, they die as humans do, lacking only the act of speech, but nevertheless earning their position on earth (as is recited in the title of the exhibition “Une Place sur la Terre”, as well as in an ink drawing by MJB).
The second type of works on show here are the series “Constellations” and two video works, both engaging with the human body.
At the entrance of the gallery on the right the video “In der Nähe” displays an array of images taken by MJB on a rock festival in Belgium. The viewer can see close-ups of people sitting in the grass and hanging out. By filming only the details of certain persons e.g. painted nails, a tattoo on the back, jewellery etc. one can imagine a whole personality or at least how they appear to be. Thus the video becomes an account of appearance, emphasizing the way a subject stages oneself in front of a camera. At the back of the gallery we find another video from the same situation under the title “In der Nähe 2” projected on the wall.
In the small room a series of 9 photographic prints and one video on a screen is shown under the title “Constellations”. This series combines different types of source images such as photographic reproductions of paintings by Manet and newspaper images that have been re-photographed by the artist with MJB’s own photographs taken from her archive between 2002-2012. All photographs are chosen individually but function as a suite, alternating images that appear either as living figures or as reproductions, all of them focusing on the face or the hands. This creates different layers: while the painted faces are represented by the painting, the living faces are represented by the photograph, out of this a third moment takes shape where all the faces are taken up in the video.
The sequence of images functions on resemblance, either on a visual basis or by certain objects that are repeated all along. The images are fragmented: as the video goes along we first get a glimpse of a face, later on a hand, or another body part of the same character. As such MJB attempts to go at the inside of things as for her the world and its interrelations are to be found in the details.
In the garden the visitor will discern a brightly glowing orange neon on the patio floor. Together with the ink drawing this forms the third strand of works: text-based works. MJB remembers sentences she once heard or read, for example the reflections of St. Augustine on time, turning them into a thing of its own. The idea that the universe is incessantly in expansion fascinates her and her recent drawings are to be viewed in this light. Neither an image nor a graphic work, they are made by atomizing ink over paper in a controlled random way. A line of text is screen printed on top expressing the passing of time. In the garden the neon extends itself as a thread of life, stating two handwritten words: “un jour”. Referring to the specific time unity of 24 hours the words also holds the promise of the future.