Dora García
26 Jan - 01 Mar 2013
© Dora García
La Puerta Verde (The Green Door), 2013
Wood door with handle and hinges, enamel
To be adpated to a specific space
Unique
La Puerta Verde (The Green Door), 2013
Wood door with handle and hinges, enamel
To be adpated to a specific space
Unique
DORA GARCIA
THE UMBRELLA CORNER (4/7) – I CAN’T BELIEVE AL DIDN’T COME
26 January - 1 March 2013
We are pleased to present the fourth part of The Umbrella Corner series, an exhibition project conceived and curated by Moritz Küng that will run parallel to the gallery’s exhibition program until June 2013.
The title of this exhibition series refers to a strangely shaped and often overlooked corner at the entrance zone of the gallery, an irregular indentation of a wall that is measuring only 60 x 60 cm in surface and that has been so far occupied by a glass stand for umbrellas. Moritz Küng establishes in that very spot a site and content specific project by inviting six artists to react on the limitations of the spatial condition as well as to a particular key work of the conceptual art movement: the installation Where’s Al? by North American artist Allen Ruppersberg produced in 1972 and today part of the Collection FRAC Poitou-Charentes in France. By doing so, the sequences of exhibitions will develop itself a narrative, an ambiguous mystery story about avoiding, disappearing, hiding, including, excluding and remembering. The complementary subtitles of the project are excerpts of dialogues from that very work. Previously shown in the corner series were Where’s Al? (1/7), a wall paper work by the Dutch Willem Oorebeek (Before and After, 2012) and Al’s missing a good time (2/7), a performance based accrochage by the French Pierre Leguillon (Ads, 2012) and Too bad Al’s not here by Belgian artist Sophie Nys (The Timid Soul, 2012).
The site-specific works and scenarios of Dora García, conceptual in nature, often draw on interactivity and performance. Through minimal changes, conventions are altered and the smallest signs are read as possible signifiers. García acts like a film director, who tells stories (or simply selects them), unchains a situation, claims a narration or makes us participants in a fictional ‘game’. Dora’s reaction to The Umbrella Corner is a new piece, The Green Door, literally a green wooden door closing the “corner” and at a same time a reference to a variety of sources taken from popular culture and fictional stories. The classic pornographic film Behind the Green Door (1972), directed by the Mitchell brothers and based on the 1940’s mistery novel by Mildred A. Wirt Benson which tells the story of an innocent American teenage-girl-reporter involved in a story where a secret door hides some illegal activity at a ski-resort hotel; The Green Door (1906), a short story by O. Henry, in which the author uses the eponymous green door as a symbol for everyday adventures which he encourages the readers to seek out; Green Door (1956), a number-one hit song by Jim Lowe and composed by Bob Davis, whose lyrics describe an establishment, with a green door, behind which “a happy crowd” play piano, smoke and “laugh a lot”, and inside which the singer is not allowed; and very specially H. G. Wells’s The Door in the Wall (1911), a short story about politician Wallace who, while growing up in a joyless home, discovers a door in a wall leading to an enchanted garden. The book suggests both the magic and the danger of a nostalgia for a buried time. Dora García’s Green Door will, however, remain locked... ‘Al’ will still be absent and we will not be allowed to discover what’s behind the green door. As García herself suggests, it is worth referring to Jacques Lacan, who described the real as unknowable and indescribable, but actively soliciting the attention of the individual, often in an aggressive manner, like “a knock on the door that interrupts a dream”.
Dora García (Valladolid, ES, 1965, lives in Barcelona). Recent solo exhibitions include: The Inadequate, Spanish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011); Power to the People: Contemporary Conceptualism and the Object in Art, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Southbank, Victoria (2011); I am a judge. Kunsthalle Bern, Bern (2010); Recent group exhibitions include: Die Klau Mich Show: radicalism in society meets experiment on TV, Documenta 13, Kassel (2012), The Unexpected Guest, Liverpool Biennial (2012), Descriptive Acts, SFMOMA, San Francisco (2012), Blow up, cycle Side Effects, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2012), Contemporary Art & Science Fiction. Grand-Hornu Museum of Contemporary Art, Hornu (2012); Books on Books, Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York (2011), The Fifth Column, Secession, Vienna (2011) and The Rehearsal of Repetition, Grantpirrie Gallery, Sydney (2011). Upcoming exhibitions and projects: Exile, Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel, curated by Steven Henry Madoff; Désordre” at 3bisf, Aix en Provence, part of Les Ateliers de L’Euromediterranée, Marseille Capital Culturel d’Europe; performance at the Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria; The Joycean Society, collateral event during the Biennale de Venezia, Prince Pierre Foundation Monaco, Giudecca; El radicalismo en la sociedad se encuentra con lo experimental en el arte, solo show at the Centro José Guerrero, Granada; solo project at Kunsthalle Bregenz, KUB Arena, Austria.
Moritz Küng (Lucerne, CH, 1961, lives in Barcelona) is an independent curator and artist’s book publisher working on the interface between art and architecture. Among his recent projects figure the international symposium on art education Old School - New Class at the University College of Art and Design Sint-Lucas, Ghent, David Kohn-Fragments, London Metropolitan University, London (2012), Bas Princen-Reservoir, deSingel, international arts campus, Antwerp (2011). Recent group exhibitions include Jonge Spaanse Kunst, Appartement Elisa Platteau, Brussels (2012); The Fifth Column, Secession, Vienna (2011); 2 1/2 dimensional: Film featuring Architecture, deSingel, Antwerp (2011). Upcoming projects: Peter Downsbrough-The Book(s) 1968-2013, Fabra i Coats Centre d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona (21.02 > 19.05.2013), or the international symposia The Age of Less: Nostalgia?, on old values and new behaviors at La Loge, Centre for Contemporary Culture in Brussels (March 2013).
THE UMBRELLA CORNER (4/7) – I CAN’T BELIEVE AL DIDN’T COME
26 January - 1 March 2013
We are pleased to present the fourth part of The Umbrella Corner series, an exhibition project conceived and curated by Moritz Küng that will run parallel to the gallery’s exhibition program until June 2013.
The title of this exhibition series refers to a strangely shaped and often overlooked corner at the entrance zone of the gallery, an irregular indentation of a wall that is measuring only 60 x 60 cm in surface and that has been so far occupied by a glass stand for umbrellas. Moritz Küng establishes in that very spot a site and content specific project by inviting six artists to react on the limitations of the spatial condition as well as to a particular key work of the conceptual art movement: the installation Where’s Al? by North American artist Allen Ruppersberg produced in 1972 and today part of the Collection FRAC Poitou-Charentes in France. By doing so, the sequences of exhibitions will develop itself a narrative, an ambiguous mystery story about avoiding, disappearing, hiding, including, excluding and remembering. The complementary subtitles of the project are excerpts of dialogues from that very work. Previously shown in the corner series were Where’s Al? (1/7), a wall paper work by the Dutch Willem Oorebeek (Before and After, 2012) and Al’s missing a good time (2/7), a performance based accrochage by the French Pierre Leguillon (Ads, 2012) and Too bad Al’s not here by Belgian artist Sophie Nys (The Timid Soul, 2012).
The site-specific works and scenarios of Dora García, conceptual in nature, often draw on interactivity and performance. Through minimal changes, conventions are altered and the smallest signs are read as possible signifiers. García acts like a film director, who tells stories (or simply selects them), unchains a situation, claims a narration or makes us participants in a fictional ‘game’. Dora’s reaction to The Umbrella Corner is a new piece, The Green Door, literally a green wooden door closing the “corner” and at a same time a reference to a variety of sources taken from popular culture and fictional stories. The classic pornographic film Behind the Green Door (1972), directed by the Mitchell brothers and based on the 1940’s mistery novel by Mildred A. Wirt Benson which tells the story of an innocent American teenage-girl-reporter involved in a story where a secret door hides some illegal activity at a ski-resort hotel; The Green Door (1906), a short story by O. Henry, in which the author uses the eponymous green door as a symbol for everyday adventures which he encourages the readers to seek out; Green Door (1956), a number-one hit song by Jim Lowe and composed by Bob Davis, whose lyrics describe an establishment, with a green door, behind which “a happy crowd” play piano, smoke and “laugh a lot”, and inside which the singer is not allowed; and very specially H. G. Wells’s The Door in the Wall (1911), a short story about politician Wallace who, while growing up in a joyless home, discovers a door in a wall leading to an enchanted garden. The book suggests both the magic and the danger of a nostalgia for a buried time. Dora García’s Green Door will, however, remain locked... ‘Al’ will still be absent and we will not be allowed to discover what’s behind the green door. As García herself suggests, it is worth referring to Jacques Lacan, who described the real as unknowable and indescribable, but actively soliciting the attention of the individual, often in an aggressive manner, like “a knock on the door that interrupts a dream”.
Dora García (Valladolid, ES, 1965, lives in Barcelona). Recent solo exhibitions include: The Inadequate, Spanish Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011); Power to the People: Contemporary Conceptualism and the Object in Art, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Southbank, Victoria (2011); I am a judge. Kunsthalle Bern, Bern (2010); Recent group exhibitions include: Die Klau Mich Show: radicalism in society meets experiment on TV, Documenta 13, Kassel (2012), The Unexpected Guest, Liverpool Biennial (2012), Descriptive Acts, SFMOMA, San Francisco (2012), Blow up, cycle Side Effects, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2012), Contemporary Art & Science Fiction. Grand-Hornu Museum of Contemporary Art, Hornu (2012); Books on Books, Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York (2011), The Fifth Column, Secession, Vienna (2011) and The Rehearsal of Repetition, Grantpirrie Gallery, Sydney (2011). Upcoming exhibitions and projects: Exile, Tel Aviv Museum, Tel Aviv, Israel, curated by Steven Henry Madoff; Désordre” at 3bisf, Aix en Provence, part of Les Ateliers de L’Euromediterranée, Marseille Capital Culturel d’Europe; performance at the Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, Austria; The Joycean Society, collateral event during the Biennale de Venezia, Prince Pierre Foundation Monaco, Giudecca; El radicalismo en la sociedad se encuentra con lo experimental en el arte, solo show at the Centro José Guerrero, Granada; solo project at Kunsthalle Bregenz, KUB Arena, Austria.
Moritz Küng (Lucerne, CH, 1961, lives in Barcelona) is an independent curator and artist’s book publisher working on the interface between art and architecture. Among his recent projects figure the international symposium on art education Old School - New Class at the University College of Art and Design Sint-Lucas, Ghent, David Kohn-Fragments, London Metropolitan University, London (2012), Bas Princen-Reservoir, deSingel, international arts campus, Antwerp (2011). Recent group exhibitions include Jonge Spaanse Kunst, Appartement Elisa Platteau, Brussels (2012); The Fifth Column, Secession, Vienna (2011); 2 1/2 dimensional: Film featuring Architecture, deSingel, Antwerp (2011). Upcoming projects: Peter Downsbrough-The Book(s) 1968-2013, Fabra i Coats Centre d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona (21.02 > 19.05.2013), or the international symposia The Age of Less: Nostalgia?, on old values and new behaviors at La Loge, Centre for Contemporary Culture in Brussels (March 2013).