Cerith Wyn Evans
27 Apr - 23 Jun 2012
CERITH WYN EVANS
Constructed Situation
27 April - 23 June 2012
In his second exhibition at the belle etage on Mehringdamm 72 Cerith Wyn Evans presents a fourteen meter long neon-work that extends through all three main rooms of the exhibition space. Following the enfilade-like succession of the rooms, the neon spells out a quote from Jimi Hendrix’ 1968 song Voodoo Child:“If I don’t meet you no more in this world. Then I’ll, I’ll meet you in the next one.
And don’t be late, don’t be late...”
Throughout his practice, Wyn Evans works extensively with references taken from art, literature, and popular culture, from which he develops dense yet elegant installations, addressing questions of translating and (re-)interpreting these resources. At Mehringdamm 72, to read the sentence viewers have to walk along the work, so that the act of reading is experienced as a temporal and spatial process. The title of the exhibition, Constructed Situation, explicitly echoes Situationist theory. Viewed in this light, Wyn Evans’ use of a quote from a Hendrix song is also a détournement, an attempt to reveal or rather create nuances in what might have congealed into an all too romantic model of transgression.
Of course, an exhibition is itself literally a constructed situation. Wyn Evans highlights this in a second installation in an adjacent room, where he creates a new version of the interior-like scenario presented in the same room during his 2008 exhibition at Mehringdamm 72. It includes a large-scale drawing by Pierre Klossowski, an antique Persian rug, and a potted plant on a revolving base. Interweaving all these elements into an atmospheric and temporal fabric, Wyn Evans folds the past into the present, just as he projects the present into the future in his neon work in the main space.
Constructed Situation
27 April - 23 June 2012
In his second exhibition at the belle etage on Mehringdamm 72 Cerith Wyn Evans presents a fourteen meter long neon-work that extends through all three main rooms of the exhibition space. Following the enfilade-like succession of the rooms, the neon spells out a quote from Jimi Hendrix’ 1968 song Voodoo Child:“If I don’t meet you no more in this world. Then I’ll, I’ll meet you in the next one.
And don’t be late, don’t be late...”
Throughout his practice, Wyn Evans works extensively with references taken from art, literature, and popular culture, from which he develops dense yet elegant installations, addressing questions of translating and (re-)interpreting these resources. At Mehringdamm 72, to read the sentence viewers have to walk along the work, so that the act of reading is experienced as a temporal and spatial process. The title of the exhibition, Constructed Situation, explicitly echoes Situationist theory. Viewed in this light, Wyn Evans’ use of a quote from a Hendrix song is also a détournement, an attempt to reveal or rather create nuances in what might have congealed into an all too romantic model of transgression.
Of course, an exhibition is itself literally a constructed situation. Wyn Evans highlights this in a second installation in an adjacent room, where he creates a new version of the interior-like scenario presented in the same room during his 2008 exhibition at Mehringdamm 72. It includes a large-scale drawing by Pierre Klossowski, an antique Persian rug, and a potted plant on a revolving base. Interweaving all these elements into an atmospheric and temporal fabric, Wyn Evans folds the past into the present, just as he projects the present into the future in his neon work in the main space.