Julien Bismuth
29 Feb - 26 Apr 2008
JULIEN BISMUTH
"Unbestimmte Stellen"
Julien Bismuth’s new exhibition at Layr Wuestenhagen is a continuation of the work he has been exhibiting over the past several months, including his last exhibition at The Box in Los Angeles. Titled “Unbestimmte Stellen”
(Indeterminate Positions), the show will consist of a series of drawings and sculptures, some of which will be “activated” by live performances or audio recordings. The central work of the exhibition, titled "the funniest saddest sculpture in the world", consists of two pedestals on which a performance will take place on the night of the 28th. The performance, inspired in part by the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962, will be performed by two actors, and deals with familiar yet complex topic of the communication of passions, such as laughter or tears. A third pedestal work, “The sorriest sculpture in the room (sorry in every way),” will be accompanied by an audio piece. The recording is a voice, saying „I‘m sorry“ in diff erent moods, apologizing for an absent sculpture. It‘s played from within the pedestal. The print „Untitled (excuses)“ is a growing and developing list of excuses, by ways of precisely orchestrated shifts, permutations, and recombinations of a set list of phrases.
A third sculptural work, “Le Dimanche de la Vie” (Sonntag des Lebens), is the first in a series of monuments to fragments of prose (citations, aphorisms). An hommage to a book by Raymond Queneau, but also to the quote from Hegel which inspired it, the work consists of a series of pennant flags, that penetrate the space of the gallery, as if a feast or celebration were taking place outside of the space. The last component of the show is a series of drawings and collages, some of which relate to the other works in the exibit, others simply linking back to the title of the show, and to the varied meaning of the words Stelle and stellen in German.
As in other works by Bismuth, the visual components are intimately bound to texts, or more generally to language, and the way in which an object or image is named and situated by artist and audience is one of the central concerns of his practice. This aspect of Bismuth’s work in turn relates to the dual nature of his practice as a whole, one that constantly oscillates between literature and visual art, working both within each of these two disciplines, but also in the space between them, in the space of their dialogue and concatenation.
Julien Bismuth (Paris (F), 1973) lives and works in New York and studied at UCLA (Richard Jackson, Paul McCarthy).
"Unbestimmte Stellen"
Julien Bismuth’s new exhibition at Layr Wuestenhagen is a continuation of the work he has been exhibiting over the past several months, including his last exhibition at The Box in Los Angeles. Titled “Unbestimmte Stellen”
(Indeterminate Positions), the show will consist of a series of drawings and sculptures, some of which will be “activated” by live performances or audio recordings. The central work of the exhibition, titled "the funniest saddest sculpture in the world", consists of two pedestals on which a performance will take place on the night of the 28th. The performance, inspired in part by the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic of 1962, will be performed by two actors, and deals with familiar yet complex topic of the communication of passions, such as laughter or tears. A third pedestal work, “The sorriest sculpture in the room (sorry in every way),” will be accompanied by an audio piece. The recording is a voice, saying „I‘m sorry“ in diff erent moods, apologizing for an absent sculpture. It‘s played from within the pedestal. The print „Untitled (excuses)“ is a growing and developing list of excuses, by ways of precisely orchestrated shifts, permutations, and recombinations of a set list of phrases.
A third sculptural work, “Le Dimanche de la Vie” (Sonntag des Lebens), is the first in a series of monuments to fragments of prose (citations, aphorisms). An hommage to a book by Raymond Queneau, but also to the quote from Hegel which inspired it, the work consists of a series of pennant flags, that penetrate the space of the gallery, as if a feast or celebration were taking place outside of the space. The last component of the show is a series of drawings and collages, some of which relate to the other works in the exibit, others simply linking back to the title of the show, and to the varied meaning of the words Stelle and stellen in German.
As in other works by Bismuth, the visual components are intimately bound to texts, or more generally to language, and the way in which an object or image is named and situated by artist and audience is one of the central concerns of his practice. This aspect of Bismuth’s work in turn relates to the dual nature of his practice as a whole, one that constantly oscillates between literature and visual art, working both within each of these two disciplines, but also in the space between them, in the space of their dialogue and concatenation.
Julien Bismuth (Paris (F), 1973) lives and works in New York and studied at UCLA (Richard Jackson, Paul McCarthy).