Alexandre Singh
06 Sep - 18 Oct 2014
ALEXANDRE SINGH
The Chorus
6 September - 18 October 2014
The Chorus, a new exhibition by Alexandre Singh at Art: Concept Gallery is part of a large-scale project on which the artist has been working since his Rotterdam residency at the Witte de With. Commissioned by this same institution and Performa 13 in New York; The Humans is a total creation : A theatrical play in three acts in which we find characters that play on codes of representation originating from different universes: ranging from reminiscences of Aristophanic theatre to the grotesque of Daumier’s creations and the fantasy-world of a writer such as Tolkien.
The Humans is a vast enterprise to which Alexandre Singh has been dedicating himself ; plunging characters into the allegorical world of two kingdoms that are separated by a central mountain. One of these kingdoms is the Apollonian realm of the brilliant and immutable sculptor Charles Ray, while the other one is the Dionysian realm of N., the Rabbit Queen, agile and sly, with curious scatological proclivities. In the bosom of these two very different worlds, two children: Tophole, son of Charles Ray, and Pantalingua, daughter of Queen N. both will conspire and plot until a wind of chaos will arise, breathing life into sculptures. Flesh generated by stone, which in turn will give birth to individuals into which the two accomplices will breathe passion and desire, but also envy and power. As soon as they have been created, the humans will rebel and reveal their various imperfections and appetites. Confusion, as well as corruption, leadership and various other brutalities will arise. With this piece Alexandre Singh gives birth to a multi-faceted and total artwork linking his sculptural production to all the other media that he uses.
This exhibition, The Chorus, derives from the aforementioned theatre piece. The artist has chosen to show the complete series of fourteen busts corresponding to the masks worn by the actors of the piece, once they have become human. These grotesque masks, flirting with Greek Tragedy or with the aesthetics of Honoré Daumier and James Gillray’s caricatures, are transformed into solid bronze busts. When we look at them carefully, we notice that they have a double character; because they can be seen both as roughly chiseled mask holders, on which masks would be resting before a theatrical performance; and as brutally grimacing faces. This phenomenon can be described as a sort of overlapping masking game.
Alexandre Singh’s work, both in The Humans and in his previous works such as Assembly Instructions or the The Economist series, as well as in the numerous performances that he has organized, is based on psychological, philosophical and historical references to the nature of our world and of mankind. It also refers to the objects that populate the world and to the social links that connect people; of which the outline is finally quite empirical because related to the idea of Nation and of an established power that is permanently striving to spread intrinsic values while at the same time contriving and tinkering with possible alliances. Alexandre Singh decomposes the whole of this spectrum, and then recomposes and re-assembles its images, playing on pre-established artistic codes and developing his own logic of thought. This isn’t just a new artistic grammar, but also an original figuration of the shaping up of language itself.
Artist? Demiurge? Preacher? Out-of-time philosopher? Alexandre Singh delivers a kind of modern tragedy that will certainly stir the spectator and invite him to ask himself questions on the bedrock of humanity, mankind, but also push him to finally ask himself which role he is playing within this human chorus.
Aurélia Bourquard // Translation Frieda Schumann
Alexandre Singh was born in 1980 in Bordeaux. He lives and works in New York. He has been awarded with the Prix Meurice for the Contemporary Arts in 2012. His theatre play The Humans was played in Rotterdam’s Schowburg and then at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York. It was also part of the 2014 Avignon Festival Program, at the Gymnase Aubanel between the 5th and the 9th July 2014. His personal exhibitions include: 2013 - The Humans, Sprüth Magers, London; Metro Pictures, New York; Assembly Instructions: The Pledge, The Drawing Center, New York; 2012 - Alexandre Singh / Assembly Instructions, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany; 2011 - La critique de l’école des objets, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Assembly Instructions: The Pledge, Monitor Gallery, Rome; 2009 - The Marque of the Third Stripe at White Room, White Columns, New York. Group exhibitions (selection): 2014 - Giving Contours To Shadows, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin; 2013 - Biennale de Lyon; La vie matérielle des choses, curated by Yann Chateigné on occasion of the 15th Price of the Ricard Foundation, Paris; 2012 - Lost in LA, Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles (curator: Marc-Olivier Wahler)
The Chorus
6 September - 18 October 2014
The Chorus, a new exhibition by Alexandre Singh at Art: Concept Gallery is part of a large-scale project on which the artist has been working since his Rotterdam residency at the Witte de With. Commissioned by this same institution and Performa 13 in New York; The Humans is a total creation : A theatrical play in three acts in which we find characters that play on codes of representation originating from different universes: ranging from reminiscences of Aristophanic theatre to the grotesque of Daumier’s creations and the fantasy-world of a writer such as Tolkien.
The Humans is a vast enterprise to which Alexandre Singh has been dedicating himself ; plunging characters into the allegorical world of two kingdoms that are separated by a central mountain. One of these kingdoms is the Apollonian realm of the brilliant and immutable sculptor Charles Ray, while the other one is the Dionysian realm of N., the Rabbit Queen, agile and sly, with curious scatological proclivities. In the bosom of these two very different worlds, two children: Tophole, son of Charles Ray, and Pantalingua, daughter of Queen N. both will conspire and plot until a wind of chaos will arise, breathing life into sculptures. Flesh generated by stone, which in turn will give birth to individuals into which the two accomplices will breathe passion and desire, but also envy and power. As soon as they have been created, the humans will rebel and reveal their various imperfections and appetites. Confusion, as well as corruption, leadership and various other brutalities will arise. With this piece Alexandre Singh gives birth to a multi-faceted and total artwork linking his sculptural production to all the other media that he uses.
This exhibition, The Chorus, derives from the aforementioned theatre piece. The artist has chosen to show the complete series of fourteen busts corresponding to the masks worn by the actors of the piece, once they have become human. These grotesque masks, flirting with Greek Tragedy or with the aesthetics of Honoré Daumier and James Gillray’s caricatures, are transformed into solid bronze busts. When we look at them carefully, we notice that they have a double character; because they can be seen both as roughly chiseled mask holders, on which masks would be resting before a theatrical performance; and as brutally grimacing faces. This phenomenon can be described as a sort of overlapping masking game.
Alexandre Singh’s work, both in The Humans and in his previous works such as Assembly Instructions or the The Economist series, as well as in the numerous performances that he has organized, is based on psychological, philosophical and historical references to the nature of our world and of mankind. It also refers to the objects that populate the world and to the social links that connect people; of which the outline is finally quite empirical because related to the idea of Nation and of an established power that is permanently striving to spread intrinsic values while at the same time contriving and tinkering with possible alliances. Alexandre Singh decomposes the whole of this spectrum, and then recomposes and re-assembles its images, playing on pre-established artistic codes and developing his own logic of thought. This isn’t just a new artistic grammar, but also an original figuration of the shaping up of language itself.
Artist? Demiurge? Preacher? Out-of-time philosopher? Alexandre Singh delivers a kind of modern tragedy that will certainly stir the spectator and invite him to ask himself questions on the bedrock of humanity, mankind, but also push him to finally ask himself which role he is playing within this human chorus.
Aurélia Bourquard // Translation Frieda Schumann
Alexandre Singh was born in 1980 in Bordeaux. He lives and works in New York. He has been awarded with the Prix Meurice for the Contemporary Arts in 2012. His theatre play The Humans was played in Rotterdam’s Schowburg and then at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York. It was also part of the 2014 Avignon Festival Program, at the Gymnase Aubanel between the 5th and the 9th July 2014. His personal exhibitions include: 2013 - The Humans, Sprüth Magers, London; Metro Pictures, New York; Assembly Instructions: The Pledge, The Drawing Center, New York; 2012 - Alexandre Singh / Assembly Instructions, Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany; 2011 - La critique de l’école des objets, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Assembly Instructions: The Pledge, Monitor Gallery, Rome; 2009 - The Marque of the Third Stripe at White Room, White Columns, New York. Group exhibitions (selection): 2014 - Giving Contours To Shadows, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin; 2013 - Biennale de Lyon; La vie matérielle des choses, curated by Yann Chateigné on occasion of the 15th Price of the Ricard Foundation, Paris; 2012 - Lost in LA, Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles (curator: Marc-Olivier Wahler)