Kunstverein Braunschweig

Steve Bishop

Start Over Every Morning

09 Mar - 05 May 2019

Steve Bishop, 2019, installation view Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2019, courtesy the artist, photo: Stefan Stark
STEVE BISHOP
Start Over Every Morning
Remise
9 March - 5 May 2019

Curator: Nele Kaczmarek

Something that was once canny and familiar, but then became lost, or at least became estranged, a loss due to the passage of time. Something one no longer belongs to, from which one is de-familiarized, de-realized. Brought into contact again with what has been lost, it feels like a dream. Josef Strau

In his artistic practice Steve Bishop explores how mental states can be materialized and conveyed in space, through installations often involving personal belongings and mementos. By subtly distorting familiar, often intimate domestic scenarios, Bishop creates intermediate worlds in which concepts of time are suspended, and clear boundaries between private and public space, exhibition and non-exhibition are blurred.

As part of his solo exhibition Start Over Every Morning, we encounter the remnants of a celebration recently passed. Constructed in the main room is a simple white kitchen, which surreally extends over the entire length of the space. Here the profoundly everyday nature of the counter meets the attempt to grasp abstract concepts of infinity. A blankness pervades the room which is punctuated by a few scattered objects: leftover cake is carefully stowed away in Tupperware boxes, recordings of jazz instrumentals drift out from a radio, and outside garden furniture is already tucked in under its plastic cover. A longing to preserve fleeting situations repeatedly arises, no matter how temporary the moment might be.

In a second room, found photographs are framed together with pages of text taken from a largely forgotten self-help organization called Re-evaluation Counseling. Slogans call for self-empowerment and optimization, and one might also discern from the neat surroundings that a desire for structure, for inner and outer clarity, seems to be as desirable as it is acutely endangered.

Steve Bishop (born 1983 in Toronto, CA) lives in London. He has recently realized solo exhibitions at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2018), Supportico Lopez with6817, Los Angeles (2016), and Carlos/Ishikawa, London (2015 / 2013).

Radio playlist:
Glad I Met Pat – Duke Jordan
Skylark – Marian McPartland
Like Someone In Love – Bill Evans Trio
The Lords Prayer – Chalmers ‘Spanky’ Alford
Something to Remember You By – Keith Jarrett
Say You’re Mine – Duke Pearson
Night Lights – Gerry Milligan
Lonely Woman – Horace Silver
Hymn to Freedom – Oscar Peterson Trio