Bruce Haines

Raphael Hefti

05 - 28 Sep 2013

RAPHAEL HEFTI
Quick Fix Remix
5 - 28 September 2013

ANCiENT & MODERN presents Raphael hefti’s first solo exhibition at the gallery with a performance of ‘Thermit Welding’. Filling the gallery with tons of sand, hefti transforms the space into an experimental workshop, using thermit welding - an ingenious portable mechanism invented in the late 19th century to melt together traintracks - to create a piece of ‘land art’ unbounded by specific location. in doing so he shares his fascination with industrial processes and the boundaries of their influenceable imperfection.

“For me the idea of performance is related intimately to the idea of production. Often the situation iwork in has its own sense of choreography - from the dunes of a beach to the machinery of a factory floor.”
Hefti’s practice often combines private performance and a kind of low-level industrial work placement, while burning and melting - the process whereby new elements are made - lie at the heart of a number of his photographic and sculpture works: from his glass ‘Subtraction as Addition’ series to his steel poles titled ‘Replaying the Mistake of the Broken hammer’ and his ‘Lycopodium’ photograms made using what in medieval times was known ‘witch powder’ for its explosive and medicinal properties.

Raphael hefti recently had a solo exhibition at CAPC - centre d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (2013, curated by Alexis Vaillant) and exhibited in ‘Flex-Sil Reloaded - homage to Roman Signer’ at kunsthalle Sankt Gallen (2013).
Others include ‘inside the White Cube’, White Cube, London (2012, solo); ‘Launching Rockets Never Gets Old’, Camden Arts Centre, London (2012, solo); ‘how To Work’, kunsthalle Basel (2011, group).

In 2011 & 2013 he won the Zurich Art Grant, in 2012 the Swiss Art Award and is winner of the Manor kunstpreis for which he has a solo show at CentrePasquArt, Biel in 2014.

Hefti first exhibited at Ancient & Modern in a group show he co-curated with Bruce haines, ‘The Sun is the Tongue, the Shadow is the Language’ (2009).

Hefti’s works are in the collections of kunsthaus Zurich, CAPC Bordeaux, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen Rotterdam; David Roberts Foundation and the Arts Council Collection England, amongst others.
 

Tags: Raphael Hefti, Roman Signer