Felix Gmelin
28 Aug - 02 Oct 2010
© Felix Gmelin
Faster, Further. An attempt to finish my father's iconography of the hat, 2010
Oil on canvas
68 x 81 cm
Faster, Further. An attempt to finish my father's iconography of the hat, 2010
Oil on canvas
68 x 81 cm
FELIX GMELIN
„the anti-father”
August 28 – Oct 2, 2010
Opening Saturday August 28th 14.00-18.00
Felix Gmelinʼs third show at Milliken Gallery returns to the personal subject of his father and a generation of post World War II activists. Alternative subjects such as the interpretation of history, structuring materials in an archive, and grasping a sense of order appear pertinent as he tries to understand his fatherʼs worldview and aspires to conclude his unfinished work. From the early 1960ʼs and until his death in 1996, Gmelinʼs father was a media-theoretician and filmmaker who taught at the Berlin Film Academy. He was an active participant in Berlin student movement in 1968 and was convinced that revolution would be the method by which the world would change. Many of his films left to Felix after his death testify to that effect. In the exhibition the anti-father Felix Gmelin utilizes his fatherʼs personal archive in attempts to further comprehend his fatherʼs political language within the leftwing perspective of the time. The new pieces presented in this exhibition give new insights into the subjects Gmelin previously explored in amongst others the work Farbtest, Die Rote Fahne II. By questioning what validity the sixties radicalism could have today Gmelin achieves a unique balance between humor, as some of the works are peculiarly funny, and the study of his fatherʼs political language.
Gmelinʼs father appears in the work Manifesto, 2010 representing power and authority in a film scene from 1967 by swiftly putting on and taking off the hats of public power-executing officials while he is giving a speech. The hats of priests, clerks and police officers appear and disappear in an eternal flow in a scene called `a lesson of the antagonism between public interest and individual search for happiness ́ and is an idealistic pamphlet agitating against an authoritarian society. In the installation these images are overlaid with subtitles from An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth written 1998 by Bruce Mau. Mau, the Canadian Chief Creative Officer of Design is a self-proclaimed visionary and world-leading innovator, who uses the language of advertising slogans or manifestoes to formulate “radical” critique. Now merged together, Gmelinʼs anti-authoritarian idealistic father speaks the words of the innovative 20th century world-leading design-guru.
Felix Gmelin was born in Heidelberg and lives and works in Berlin. His previous exhibitions include Untitled (History Painting), University of Michigan Museum of Art, curated by Jacob Proctor, 2009; Not Quite How I Remember It, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada, curated by Helena Reckitt, 2008; Left Pop (bringing it back home), 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art - Special projects, Moscow Museum of Modern Art at Petrovka, Moscow (curated by Diana Baldon, Nicola Lees and Georgina Jackson), 2007; Think with the Senses - Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense, La 52 Biennale di Venezia, Arsenale, Venice, curated by Robert Storr, 2007; Of Mice and Men, Berlin Biennial 4, Berlin (curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick), 2006; Ahistoric Occasion: Artists Making History, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, USA (curated by Nato Thompson), 2006; Delays and Revolutions, La 50 Biennale di Venezia , curated by Francesco Bonami and Daniel Birnbaum, 2003; and Art Vandals, Malmö Konstmuseum, Uppsala Konstmuseum; 1998.
„the anti-father”
August 28 – Oct 2, 2010
Opening Saturday August 28th 14.00-18.00
Felix Gmelinʼs third show at Milliken Gallery returns to the personal subject of his father and a generation of post World War II activists. Alternative subjects such as the interpretation of history, structuring materials in an archive, and grasping a sense of order appear pertinent as he tries to understand his fatherʼs worldview and aspires to conclude his unfinished work. From the early 1960ʼs and until his death in 1996, Gmelinʼs father was a media-theoretician and filmmaker who taught at the Berlin Film Academy. He was an active participant in Berlin student movement in 1968 and was convinced that revolution would be the method by which the world would change. Many of his films left to Felix after his death testify to that effect. In the exhibition the anti-father Felix Gmelin utilizes his fatherʼs personal archive in attempts to further comprehend his fatherʼs political language within the leftwing perspective of the time. The new pieces presented in this exhibition give new insights into the subjects Gmelin previously explored in amongst others the work Farbtest, Die Rote Fahne II. By questioning what validity the sixties radicalism could have today Gmelin achieves a unique balance between humor, as some of the works are peculiarly funny, and the study of his fatherʼs political language.
Gmelinʼs father appears in the work Manifesto, 2010 representing power and authority in a film scene from 1967 by swiftly putting on and taking off the hats of public power-executing officials while he is giving a speech. The hats of priests, clerks and police officers appear and disappear in an eternal flow in a scene called `a lesson of the antagonism between public interest and individual search for happiness ́ and is an idealistic pamphlet agitating against an authoritarian society. In the installation these images are overlaid with subtitles from An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth written 1998 by Bruce Mau. Mau, the Canadian Chief Creative Officer of Design is a self-proclaimed visionary and world-leading innovator, who uses the language of advertising slogans or manifestoes to formulate “radical” critique. Now merged together, Gmelinʼs anti-authoritarian idealistic father speaks the words of the innovative 20th century world-leading design-guru.
Felix Gmelin was born in Heidelberg and lives and works in Berlin. His previous exhibitions include Untitled (History Painting), University of Michigan Museum of Art, curated by Jacob Proctor, 2009; Not Quite How I Remember It, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada, curated by Helena Reckitt, 2008; Left Pop (bringing it back home), 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art - Special projects, Moscow Museum of Modern Art at Petrovka, Moscow (curated by Diana Baldon, Nicola Lees and Georgina Jackson), 2007; Think with the Senses - Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense, La 52 Biennale di Venezia, Arsenale, Venice, curated by Robert Storr, 2007; Of Mice and Men, Berlin Biennial 4, Berlin (curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick), 2006; Ahistoric Occasion: Artists Making History, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, USA (curated by Nato Thompson), 2006; Delays and Revolutions, La 50 Biennale di Venezia , curated by Francesco Bonami and Daniel Birnbaum, 2003; and Art Vandals, Malmö Konstmuseum, Uppsala Konstmuseum; 1998.