Ian Burns
08 Mar - 14 Apr 2007
IAN BURNS
"The End"
Exhibition Dates: Del 8 de Marzo al 14 de Abril de 2007
Opening: Jueves 8 de Marzo, a las 20 horas
The End is the title of IAN BURNS’s first show in Spain, at Espacio Minimo gallery.The work of this Australian artist living in New York was first seen in this country in the recent edition of ARCO at this same gallery’s stand.
It is not a coincidental choice for the title’s show, nor is it’s cinematographic evocation, as many of the works that make up the exhibition, particluarly the work Off Season and On Screen, seek to make a little ridiculous the exploitation of well established cinematic effects in the name of contemporary video art. These tropes have become linked to high budget productions where artists make nebulous, mysterious abstracted narratives focusing on shamanistic rituals and personalities or re-imaginings of historical and current character and/or situation.
IAN BURNS’s work seeks to honour and consciously portray the roots of these cinematic clichés, without recourse to high budget techniques and through a sculptural method that runs counter to the “well designed” focus that seems to be becoming more prevalent in contemporary sculpture. They are works with a false sophistication in which all the elements are laid bare. The artist ingeniously mixes low quality materials – coarse wooden planks, fans, cables, cellophane colour filters... – with high technology atrezzo like plasma screens, projectors, miniature webcams.... to extract his works - strange video hybrids - from organized chaos that works like a reality show entertaining the viewer with biting humour, and questioning the validity and familiarity of those images and our perceptions of them. By showing the artifice of the machinery that generates the imagery he has the ability of synthesizing imaginary scenes. What we are offered is not so much similitude as the demonstration of how a limited number of signs, particularly when activated, can evoke so much anonymous imagery at once familiar and yet strangely unrecognizable.
IAN BURNS (Australia, 1964), graduated in Engineering at Swinburne University in Melbourne (Australia) and in Fine Arts at Newcastle University (Australia) y and is Master of Fine Arts at Hunter College of CUNY, New York. He has had solo shows at important galleries – Spencer Brownstone, New York, Hilger Contemporary, Viena...- and museums – Newcastle Region Art Museum, Australia, University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa...- and taken part in deistinguished group shows such as Light, Sound, Art & Sccience at Miami Museum of Science (2004), Between Interconnectedness, Smack Mellon, Blrooklyn, NY (2004). Greater New York, PS1 Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2005), Torino Triennale Tremusei, Castello di Rivoli, Turín (2005), Now Voyager, Islip Art Museum, Islip, NY (2006), New York State of Mind, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlín (2007)...
For Further information or images please do not hesitate to contact the gallery
"The End"
Exhibition Dates: Del 8 de Marzo al 14 de Abril de 2007
Opening: Jueves 8 de Marzo, a las 20 horas
The End is the title of IAN BURNS’s first show in Spain, at Espacio Minimo gallery.The work of this Australian artist living in New York was first seen in this country in the recent edition of ARCO at this same gallery’s stand.
It is not a coincidental choice for the title’s show, nor is it’s cinematographic evocation, as many of the works that make up the exhibition, particluarly the work Off Season and On Screen, seek to make a little ridiculous the exploitation of well established cinematic effects in the name of contemporary video art. These tropes have become linked to high budget productions where artists make nebulous, mysterious abstracted narratives focusing on shamanistic rituals and personalities or re-imaginings of historical and current character and/or situation.
IAN BURNS’s work seeks to honour and consciously portray the roots of these cinematic clichés, without recourse to high budget techniques and through a sculptural method that runs counter to the “well designed” focus that seems to be becoming more prevalent in contemporary sculpture. They are works with a false sophistication in which all the elements are laid bare. The artist ingeniously mixes low quality materials – coarse wooden planks, fans, cables, cellophane colour filters... – with high technology atrezzo like plasma screens, projectors, miniature webcams.... to extract his works - strange video hybrids - from organized chaos that works like a reality show entertaining the viewer with biting humour, and questioning the validity and familiarity of those images and our perceptions of them. By showing the artifice of the machinery that generates the imagery he has the ability of synthesizing imaginary scenes. What we are offered is not so much similitude as the demonstration of how a limited number of signs, particularly when activated, can evoke so much anonymous imagery at once familiar and yet strangely unrecognizable.
IAN BURNS (Australia, 1964), graduated in Engineering at Swinburne University in Melbourne (Australia) and in Fine Arts at Newcastle University (Australia) y and is Master of Fine Arts at Hunter College of CUNY, New York. He has had solo shows at important galleries – Spencer Brownstone, New York, Hilger Contemporary, Viena...- and museums – Newcastle Region Art Museum, Australia, University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa...- and taken part in deistinguished group shows such as Light, Sound, Art & Sccience at Miami Museum of Science (2004), Between Interconnectedness, Smack Mellon, Blrooklyn, NY (2004). Greater New York, PS1 Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2005), Torino Triennale Tremusei, Castello di Rivoli, Turín (2005), Now Voyager, Islip Art Museum, Islip, NY (2006), New York State of Mind, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlín (2007)...
For Further information or images please do not hesitate to contact the gallery