Freymond-Guth

I CAN’T FORGET BUT I DON’T REMEMBER WHAT
30 October – 24 December 2010

Sophie Bueno-Boutellier, Rosy Keyser & Karin Suter

With the exhibition I can’t forget but I don’t remember what Freymond-Guth Ltd. Fine Arts is pleased to present for the first time in Switzerland works by Sophie Bueno-Boutellier (*1974, F, lives in Berlin) and Rosy Keyser (*1974, USA, lives in New York) along with new works by Karin Suter (*1979, CH, lives in Rotterdam und Basel) who has been shown at the gallery last in 2008.
Taking a Leonard Cohen quote as a loosely formulated starting point, this exhibition introduces the work of three artists of the same generation that show formal and ideal proximities. Notions of volatility, memory and process- oriented formulation are substantial elements in a comprehensive installation that puts the individual works, mainly made on the occasion of this exhibition into a tension- generating relation. The merging of opposites like natural and artificial materials, of characteristics such as brute force and fragility, abstraction, allegory and narration along with the creation of poetic landscapes in the space by strongly suggestive, highly symbolic image- and object language can be stated as similarities in the working manor of Bueno-Boutellier, Keyser and Suter. Their work is the expression of a multi- layered confrontation with mythological and literary themes, music, as well as cosmological and theosophical theories and a specific art-historical heritage for which for example Kazimir Malevich or Robert Smithson’s esotericism can be named as conscious or
unconscious paradigms. While Bueno-Boutellier and Suter mainly work with and on the topic of the object, constituting a tendency of poetic minimalism, Keyser’s works distinguish themselves more through their eruptive aesthetics focusing on the format of painting that manifests in violent gestures of application or transection of layers and creates moments of negation. The artist herself describes her style as “Neo Brut” referring to the raucous aspects of “Art Brut”, although the strained prefix “Neo” is inherent of a (self-) critical overtone concerning the categorizing of style. Her works mainly are to be seen in the tradition of various tendencies of abstract painting as well as relating to the re-formulating of object and tableaux exercised since the 1960ies. The latter being an impression that in Keyser’s work materializes through the excessive haptics of the surfaces: colors, often originating in the darker palette, mix with saw dust, glitter, obsidian and yarn and form pastose, coarse- grained to thin, pervious plains.Karin Suter and Sophie Bueno-Boutellier’s works have a comparable affinity for the treatment of disparate materials that they work into fragile, sometimes fetish and many times symbolically charged objects, carrying a narrative or metaphoric potential through their arrangement and titling. Found branches and raw cubes of wood are covered with epoxy resin, creating shiny- wet surfaces, the fluent synthetic partially frozen in it’s movement and the organic material conserved or more likely domesticated to a “nature morte”.

Doing so, Karin Suter who has been expanding her former exclusive occupation with painting into the three- dimensional for several years also experiments with a classical art historical theme of the possibilities of pedestal and sculpture as well as the relationship to the viewer. The working on the creating of balance, the proportion between fragility and stability play an important role also. A stool can become a pedestal and stability is established through chocks and bricks.
While in Suter’s work the evident traces of processing are part of the concept- strings of viscous resin, paint stains, the dirty rawness of a block of wood- the staging of materials in Bueno-Boutellier’s oeuvre - even if a heap of earth- is altogether to be described as more puristical and artificial. An impression that manifests in the stage-like arrangements of clean or cleaned objects. The artist combines especially in her installations materials such as sand, salt, stones and branches with cloth, reflecting metals and mirrors to three- dimensional abstractions of landscape of great poetic potential while at the same time creating references to historic art directions and esoteric-visual symbol-languages.

Rosy Keyser: Projects and exhibitions (selection):
Peter Blum Chelsea, New York, USA, (s, 2008 & 2009), Jason McCoy Gallery, New York USA, D‘Amelio Terras, New York, USA, Ballroom Marfa, Texas, USA (curated by Fairfax Dorn), Reynolds Gallery, Richmond, USA, Grimm Fine Art, Amsterdam NL, Tracy Williams Inc, (curated by David Hunt), New York, USA, Laeso, Denmark/ Baltimore, USA ,Track House (Remote Back Side), Marble, Colorado, USA, Track house, Chicago USA, Jessica Murray Projects, Brooklyn, USA, Track House, Chicago, USA , Gallery 400 at The University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, USA, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York USA, The Pond, Chicago, USA, MCA Chicago, Chicago, USA

Sophie Bueno-Boutellier: Projects and exhibitions (selection):
Circus, Berlin (s, 2010 & 2009), Samsa (w. Gerda Scheepers,), Berlin, D, Fluxia Gallery, Milan IT, Galerie Carlos Cardenas, Paris, F, (s 2009), Chert, Berlin (s, 2009), Present Future Artissima, curated by Aurélie Voltz, Torino, IT, (s, 2009) Atelier Cardenas-Bellanger, Paris, F, (s, 2008) Antidote 5, curated by Guillaume Houzé, Groupe Galeries Lafayette, Paris, F, Prix Ricard nominée exhibition, curated by Judicaël Lavrador, Fondation d‘entreprise Ricard pour l‘art contemporain, Paris, F, MAYDAY, Rental gallery, New-York, USA, La galerie, Noisy-le-sec, Beton-Salon, Museums Quartier, Vienna, A, (s, 2007), L‘ancienne école, Marato, F, (s, 2004), Espace Diamant, Ajaccio, Corsica, (s, 2004), F, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, A, Galerie Sandra Bürgel, Berlin, D, Centre d’art contemporain la Synagogue de Delme, Delme, F, Galerie Soardi, Nice, F, Espace Electra, curated by Alex Farquharson & Alexis Vaillant Paris, F, Stenersenmuseet, Oslo, NO, Villa Cameline, Nice, F

Karin Suter: Projects and exhibitions (selection):
Kunsthaus Baselland, CH (S, 2010), Moon Window, de Aanschouw, Rotterdam, NL, Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel, CH Art Cologne, Stichting Kaus Australis, Rotterdam, NL, New Contemporaries (with Megan Sullivan), Freymond-Guth Fine Arts, Zurich & Galerie Sandra Bürgel, Berlin, Cologne, D, Kunsthaus Aarau, Aarau, CH Marion Scharmann, Cologne, D, (s, 2009) Freymond-Guth Fine Arts, Zurich, CH (s, 2008), Goldenes Kalb/ Ausstellungsraum Visarte Aargau, Aarau, CH, Pictura Dordrecht, Dordrecht, NL, Artnews Projects, Berlin, DE, Dashanzi Art Festival, Beijing, PRC, Artists Network, Guangzhou, PRC, Shanghai Art Center, PRC, Beijing Imperial City Art Museum Curated by Huan Yen and Zhao Shulin, PRC (s, 2007), Les Complices*, Zurich, CH (s, 2006), Hoffmann-La Roche Collection, Basel, CH (s, 2005), Tony Wuethrich Gallery, (with Karin Schwarzbek & Indra) Basel, CH, Filiale, Basel, CH, Roche Collection, Tinguely Museum, Basel, CH ,Villa Wenkenhof, iehen, CH, Kunstraum Riehen, CH, Salon Beige, Berlin D