Jorge Pardo
04 Apr - 04 Aug 2009
Jorge Pardo, Untitled, 2008, Mdf, plastic laminate, acrylic, 89,2 X 82,5 X 2 cm, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne, photo: Simon Vogel
Jorge Pardo, the designer of Düsseldorf’s Bar am Kaiserteich in K21, will be on show as a versatile proponent of fine arts in the comprehensive exhibition in K21 which he set up himself. In his multi-faceted artistic concept, shapes, colours and the awareness of space are articulated as the fundamental conditions of a contemporary aesthetic experience.
Oval spots in pale green, yellow, and orange bubble across the reddish-brown walls and onto the ceiling, while a band of light composed of green and blue blades bisects and accentuates the tall room.
The Bar am Kaiserteich in the K21, designed by Jorge Pardo in 2002, is a much–favored Düsseldorf meeting place.
The K21 Kunstsammlung NRW is the first European museum to devote a solo exhibition to this in 1963 Havanna born Cuban-American artist.
Encompassing objects, pictures, and sculptures, it provides an overview of Pardo’s production over the past 15 years. At the center of interest are Pardo’s virtuosic designs of surfaces, which take the form of pictures, wall objects, and relieves, all of them offering a profusion of opulent and sensuous impressions.
The exhibition is being organized in close collaboration with the artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. The core of the presentation is formed by three new pavilions designed by Pardo and his team, structures based on an architectural type found frequently in the tropics, the so-called “palapa.” Open at the sides, the roofs traditionally covered in palm leaves, these huts provide shelter from the sun while serving as gathering places.
In Pardo’s exhibition, these accessible palapas serve as display cases and cabinets. While the outer boundaries consist of airy curtains, a central interior space is formed by ornamentally perforated wooden walls. Containing objects drawn from three different working phases of this artist’s career, the palapas thematize concealment and disclosure, a synthesis of function and presentation that is emblematic of Jorge Pardo’s artistic intentions.
During his studies in the 1980s at the Art Center of Design in Pasadena/California, Pardo became one of the first artists of his generation to exploit the computer in his creative production. Pardo's pieces are produced in a workshop that is organized like a manufacturing unit, where he collaborates with artistic assistants, experienced craft experts, and architects.
In the “Jorge Pardo Sculpture Studio” in Los Angeles, craft techniques are combined in a singular way with digitally–guided production. The objects, pictures, and forms created there suspend the boundaries distinguishing design, architecture, sculpture, and painting from one another, effacing the line between autonomous and applied art while establishing unexpected links between the various media.
In formal terms, Pardo's work is strongly indebted to the vocabulary of Classical Modernism (from Hans Arp to Henry Moore) and to design history (from Charles Eames to Verner Panton). Influences derived from Conceptual Art and from practices of institutional critique (from Daniel Buren to Michael Asher and Heimo Zoberning) also play a vital role. Pardo refers to himself as a sculptor, and his field of activity is the space within which the viewer moves. His oeuvre’s most conspicuous feature is the seductiveness of its extraordinary coloristic splendor and formal variety.
But standing behind these effects is an artistic approach that brings together art and life in order to radically interrogate the forms and functions of design and decor with regard to their contemporary societal significance. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalog designed by the Jorge Pardo Sculpture Studio and containing contributions by Alex Coles, Christina Végh, Doris Krystof, and Barbara Steiner (Klaus Richter Verlag, Düsseldorf, 144 pp. with ca. 90 color illustrations).
A wide-ranging program accompanies the exhibition, and includes lectures, discussions, seminars, and workshops as well as excursions to the Düsseldorfer Stadtwerken (Düsseldorf Municipal Utilities), whose historic turbine hall has been decorated by Jorge Pardo with enormous murals and a floor mosaic.
Oval spots in pale green, yellow, and orange bubble across the reddish-brown walls and onto the ceiling, while a band of light composed of green and blue blades bisects and accentuates the tall room.
The Bar am Kaiserteich in the K21, designed by Jorge Pardo in 2002, is a much–favored Düsseldorf meeting place.
The K21 Kunstsammlung NRW is the first European museum to devote a solo exhibition to this in 1963 Havanna born Cuban-American artist.
Encompassing objects, pictures, and sculptures, it provides an overview of Pardo’s production over the past 15 years. At the center of interest are Pardo’s virtuosic designs of surfaces, which take the form of pictures, wall objects, and relieves, all of them offering a profusion of opulent and sensuous impressions.
The exhibition is being organized in close collaboration with the artist who lives and works in Los Angeles. The core of the presentation is formed by three new pavilions designed by Pardo and his team, structures based on an architectural type found frequently in the tropics, the so-called “palapa.” Open at the sides, the roofs traditionally covered in palm leaves, these huts provide shelter from the sun while serving as gathering places.
In Pardo’s exhibition, these accessible palapas serve as display cases and cabinets. While the outer boundaries consist of airy curtains, a central interior space is formed by ornamentally perforated wooden walls. Containing objects drawn from three different working phases of this artist’s career, the palapas thematize concealment and disclosure, a synthesis of function and presentation that is emblematic of Jorge Pardo’s artistic intentions.
During his studies in the 1980s at the Art Center of Design in Pasadena/California, Pardo became one of the first artists of his generation to exploit the computer in his creative production. Pardo's pieces are produced in a workshop that is organized like a manufacturing unit, where he collaborates with artistic assistants, experienced craft experts, and architects.
In the “Jorge Pardo Sculpture Studio” in Los Angeles, craft techniques are combined in a singular way with digitally–guided production. The objects, pictures, and forms created there suspend the boundaries distinguishing design, architecture, sculpture, and painting from one another, effacing the line between autonomous and applied art while establishing unexpected links between the various media.
In formal terms, Pardo's work is strongly indebted to the vocabulary of Classical Modernism (from Hans Arp to Henry Moore) and to design history (from Charles Eames to Verner Panton). Influences derived from Conceptual Art and from practices of institutional critique (from Daniel Buren to Michael Asher and Heimo Zoberning) also play a vital role. Pardo refers to himself as a sculptor, and his field of activity is the space within which the viewer moves. His oeuvre’s most conspicuous feature is the seductiveness of its extraordinary coloristic splendor and formal variety.
But standing behind these effects is an artistic approach that brings together art and life in order to radically interrogate the forms and functions of design and decor with regard to their contemporary societal significance. Accompanying the exhibition is a catalog designed by the Jorge Pardo Sculpture Studio and containing contributions by Alex Coles, Christina Végh, Doris Krystof, and Barbara Steiner (Klaus Richter Verlag, Düsseldorf, 144 pp. with ca. 90 color illustrations).
A wide-ranging program accompanies the exhibition, and includes lectures, discussions, seminars, and workshops as well as excursions to the Düsseldorfer Stadtwerken (Düsseldorf Municipal Utilities), whose historic turbine hall has been decorated by Jorge Pardo with enormous murals and a floor mosaic.