Micol Assaël
04 Apr - 21 Jun 2009
MICOL ASSAËL
Fomuška
4 April - 21 June 2009
Micol Assaël’s artistic work is characterised by a profound fascination and passion for the laws and principles of physics and mathematics, for technology and industry, for machinery and motors. She works with industrial containers and refrigerated rooms, with power generators and exposed electric circuits, bringing them together with natural elements and confronting the human body with strong air currents, smoke, steam, water, ice, or lightning. The young Italian artist has created an extensive oeuvre employing a number of different artistic media, including drawings, sculptures, performances, and sound. But Assaël has become particularly well known for the installations with which she probes the human body and sharpens people’s physical perception. In her work, nature and technology, human beings and machines, are closely intertwined via physical experiences and stimuli.
Her installations, whether they are in disused industrial buildings or in museums, are often conceived for specific locations and cannot be appreciated passively. The viewer invariably becomes the subject of her studies: sometimes completely unconsciously, sometimes clearly and palpably, experiencing unpleasant, disconcerting, or threatening physical sensations.
At the 50th Biennale in Venice (2003) Micol Assaël cladded the exhibition room with iron and installed air vents which blew hot air into the space. High tension cables were visible and sparks were running through the room. For her work Mindfall exhibited at the Manifesta 5 in San Sebastian in 2004, she put loud, shrilly clattering motors in a closed-down industrial building, taking a nostalgic look at archaic industrial machinery. The building was filled with the noise of the motors and the smell of diesel fuel. At the 4th Berlin Biennial in 2006, in a run-down former Jewish girl's school Micol Assaël generated cold, strong air currents and subjected visitors to them all of a sudden or to water dripping from a spigot on the ceiling and under the iron panels there were sparks. For Electrical Diagrams at the 16th Biennale of Sydney in 2008, the artist used an abandoned electricity plant on Cockatoo Island not only as a presentation space but also as an integral component of her installation. On the devices and machines of this “found place” she distributed papers about electricity plants with some of her own little drawings on.
While her installations incorporating machines and motors look rather coarse, other works of hers attest to minimalism and plain aesthetics. For Chizhevsky Lessons (2007), a work with which Micol Assaël references research findings of the Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky, the artist converted the large skylight hall of the Kunsthalle Basel into an electromagnetic field. While the power generator and the electric cables were concealed, copper plates were affixed to the ceiling, referring to a soviet style. When visitors entered the room they received an electrostatic charge, feeling a tingling sensation. They could create a discharge by touching another person.
For her solo exhibition Fomuška at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum Micol Assaël again worked with the Moscow University of Energetics, developing an expansive machine which will also produce an electrostatic charge. Positioned in the middle of the Kassel exhibition space, the machine will bring together water and electricity to produce clouds of steam and lightning affecting the body, physical perception, and the senses. Like her work in Basel, the installation will confront visitors with the immateriality of electricity and its at once natural and mysterious power.
Fomuška is realised in collaboration with Secession, Vienna and Museion, Bolzano.
Fomuška
4 April - 21 June 2009
Micol Assaël’s artistic work is characterised by a profound fascination and passion for the laws and principles of physics and mathematics, for technology and industry, for machinery and motors. She works with industrial containers and refrigerated rooms, with power generators and exposed electric circuits, bringing them together with natural elements and confronting the human body with strong air currents, smoke, steam, water, ice, or lightning. The young Italian artist has created an extensive oeuvre employing a number of different artistic media, including drawings, sculptures, performances, and sound. But Assaël has become particularly well known for the installations with which she probes the human body and sharpens people’s physical perception. In her work, nature and technology, human beings and machines, are closely intertwined via physical experiences and stimuli.
Her installations, whether they are in disused industrial buildings or in museums, are often conceived for specific locations and cannot be appreciated passively. The viewer invariably becomes the subject of her studies: sometimes completely unconsciously, sometimes clearly and palpably, experiencing unpleasant, disconcerting, or threatening physical sensations.
At the 50th Biennale in Venice (2003) Micol Assaël cladded the exhibition room with iron and installed air vents which blew hot air into the space. High tension cables were visible and sparks were running through the room. For her work Mindfall exhibited at the Manifesta 5 in San Sebastian in 2004, she put loud, shrilly clattering motors in a closed-down industrial building, taking a nostalgic look at archaic industrial machinery. The building was filled with the noise of the motors and the smell of diesel fuel. At the 4th Berlin Biennial in 2006, in a run-down former Jewish girl's school Micol Assaël generated cold, strong air currents and subjected visitors to them all of a sudden or to water dripping from a spigot on the ceiling and under the iron panels there were sparks. For Electrical Diagrams at the 16th Biennale of Sydney in 2008, the artist used an abandoned electricity plant on Cockatoo Island not only as a presentation space but also as an integral component of her installation. On the devices and machines of this “found place” she distributed papers about electricity plants with some of her own little drawings on.
While her installations incorporating machines and motors look rather coarse, other works of hers attest to minimalism and plain aesthetics. For Chizhevsky Lessons (2007), a work with which Micol Assaël references research findings of the Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky, the artist converted the large skylight hall of the Kunsthalle Basel into an electromagnetic field. While the power generator and the electric cables were concealed, copper plates were affixed to the ceiling, referring to a soviet style. When visitors entered the room they received an electrostatic charge, feeling a tingling sensation. They could create a discharge by touching another person.
For her solo exhibition Fomuška at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum Micol Assaël again worked with the Moscow University of Energetics, developing an expansive machine which will also produce an electrostatic charge. Positioned in the middle of the Kassel exhibition space, the machine will bring together water and electricity to produce clouds of steam and lightning affecting the body, physical perception, and the senses. Like her work in Basel, the installation will confront visitors with the immateriality of electricity and its at once natural and mysterious power.
Fomuška is realised in collaboration with Secession, Vienna and Museion, Bolzano.