Adina Popescu
07 Sep - 20 Oct 2012
ADINA POPESCU
SOLID STATES
7 September – 20 October 2012
Galeria Plan B is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of Adina Popescu (*1975 in Romania, lives in New York).
We are happy to invite you to the opening of the exhibition SOLID STATES on Friday, September 7 from 6 to 10 pm.
This is a show about lifelessness, artificiality and the scary immortality of synthetic materials
It is about FEELINGS AS READYMADES and about techniques of Global Marketing, PR, Speeches and Hollywood Cinema
I. JEREMIAH
Adina Popescu’s film (Jeremiah, HD, 10:23 min, 2010) shows a confession of an Internet hacker -played by Clemens Schick- who was convicted for IDENTITY THEFT. At the same time he is nothing but a scripted character: We see the actor wearing a silly blue bow tie. His extensively color corrected eyes seem meaningful when looking at us through the camera lens, when telling us how it all started and how he got into stealing - only for us to realize that the character speaking to us might not have an identity ...
Adina Popescu worked with an editor of commercial movie trailers on the edit of this piece, using the same techniques of intensification and heightened dramatic attention as known from mainstream cinema and advertising language. Jeremiah is a highly manipulated character that is not to be trusted. At the same time he speaks the truth. The text claims positions that the author agrees with A HUNDRED PERCENT - and yet- it is hard to tell if Jeremiah is lying to us or not. He obviously is an imposter, as is the artwork that acts as his frame.
II. SOLID STATE I, II & III (2012, raw steel, acrylic paint, plastic coating, MDF, enamel, polyester)
SOLID STATES is an examination of how abstractions and models shape real space.
How can the outline of a room, an architectural drawing, a 3D rendering, a sketch or a speculation (arbitrary dots connected by a pen) be transferred into real space while maintaining their abstraction? When using 3D programs one starts creating a solid object within a space by picking one’s basic form - a brick of language - from which then the simulation can be built. Similar to PR, where idioms and metaphors or certain key words become interchangeable modules, or as in editing, where a certain set of commands create a standardized emotion, hybrid spaces can be constructed from scratch and can propose a reality that is not based on the modes of the physical space any longer.
In this exhibition Adina Popescu has built a set of objects that form the outline of a film set. It merely serves as a framework to Jeremiah. His space is nothing but a transfer of a model into the real world. What we see here is a lifeless space, made from lines of raw steel with their infinite processes of oxidation, as well as unorganic toxic plastic coatings that may as well exist in a vacuum. But non the less: If we were to trace those lines, trying to understand where they connect, would we then be able to tell a narrative?
III. '2014’
‘2014’ is an exploration of PR language and how it colonizes our imagination with readymade images and feelings that - until today - use the same prophecies, fears and metaphors. (‘2014’, 2012, sound installation)
This piece has been installed in the galleries project room. Its text is a direct translation of Goebbels
Sportpalast Rede into a ‘German sounding’ English and performed by the same Clemens Schick. Adina Popescu has altered the text on the basis of an index with which she replaced all the keywords of the text (National Socialism, War, Front etc.) with keywords from todays PR texts taken from political campaigns and from speeches on the economic crises in 2008 (the company, the government, economic crises, democracy, western world etc.).
SOLID STATES
7 September – 20 October 2012
Galeria Plan B is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition of Adina Popescu (*1975 in Romania, lives in New York).
We are happy to invite you to the opening of the exhibition SOLID STATES on Friday, September 7 from 6 to 10 pm.
This is a show about lifelessness, artificiality and the scary immortality of synthetic materials
It is about FEELINGS AS READYMADES and about techniques of Global Marketing, PR, Speeches and Hollywood Cinema
I. JEREMIAH
Adina Popescu’s film (Jeremiah, HD, 10:23 min, 2010) shows a confession of an Internet hacker -played by Clemens Schick- who was convicted for IDENTITY THEFT. At the same time he is nothing but a scripted character: We see the actor wearing a silly blue bow tie. His extensively color corrected eyes seem meaningful when looking at us through the camera lens, when telling us how it all started and how he got into stealing - only for us to realize that the character speaking to us might not have an identity ...
Adina Popescu worked with an editor of commercial movie trailers on the edit of this piece, using the same techniques of intensification and heightened dramatic attention as known from mainstream cinema and advertising language. Jeremiah is a highly manipulated character that is not to be trusted. At the same time he speaks the truth. The text claims positions that the author agrees with A HUNDRED PERCENT - and yet- it is hard to tell if Jeremiah is lying to us or not. He obviously is an imposter, as is the artwork that acts as his frame.
II. SOLID STATE I, II & III (2012, raw steel, acrylic paint, plastic coating, MDF, enamel, polyester)
SOLID STATES is an examination of how abstractions and models shape real space.
How can the outline of a room, an architectural drawing, a 3D rendering, a sketch or a speculation (arbitrary dots connected by a pen) be transferred into real space while maintaining their abstraction? When using 3D programs one starts creating a solid object within a space by picking one’s basic form - a brick of language - from which then the simulation can be built. Similar to PR, where idioms and metaphors or certain key words become interchangeable modules, or as in editing, where a certain set of commands create a standardized emotion, hybrid spaces can be constructed from scratch and can propose a reality that is not based on the modes of the physical space any longer.
In this exhibition Adina Popescu has built a set of objects that form the outline of a film set. It merely serves as a framework to Jeremiah. His space is nothing but a transfer of a model into the real world. What we see here is a lifeless space, made from lines of raw steel with their infinite processes of oxidation, as well as unorganic toxic plastic coatings that may as well exist in a vacuum. But non the less: If we were to trace those lines, trying to understand where they connect, would we then be able to tell a narrative?
III. '2014’
‘2014’ is an exploration of PR language and how it colonizes our imagination with readymade images and feelings that - until today - use the same prophecies, fears and metaphors. (‘2014’, 2012, sound installation)
This piece has been installed in the galleries project room. Its text is a direct translation of Goebbels
Sportpalast Rede into a ‘German sounding’ English and performed by the same Clemens Schick. Adina Popescu has altered the text on the basis of an index with which she replaced all the keywords of the text (National Socialism, War, Front etc.) with keywords from todays PR texts taken from political campaigns and from speeches on the economic crises in 2008 (the company, the government, economic crises, democracy, western world etc.).