Lorena Herrera Rashid
07 Feb - 29 Mar 2014
LORENA HERRERA RASHID
7 February - 29 March 2014
The forthcoming exhibition will be Mexican-born Lorena Herrera Rashid's second one at the Rüdiger Schöttle Gallery. Entitled New Solutions, it has as its themes such aspects of modern human life as mass media, consumerism, artificiality, waste and imitation. The work No One consists of a rose in an upturned glass vase and two elaborated hands. The rose has been in the vase for a good twelve months and while it has retained its original shape it has lost its red colour, thus ideally symbolizing death and mortality. Combined with the hands, the glass vase is strongly reminiscent of a fortune teller's glass ball, and this association of ideas then brings to the fore the notion of temporality itself, for the past, the present and the future are here experienced within one and the same moment.
The figures entitled New Solutions I – IV may be understood to represent either the smallest social unit, the family, or the individual within society. Nos. I to III are differently sized sculptures positioned as a group in front of a mirror. While the figures are constructed in different ways and from different materials, such as wood, sheets of plywood, aluminium and furniture parts, the addition of shop-window dummies' hands gives them a human aspect. The mirror not only duplicates the scene but also, when viewed from a certain angle, integrates the viewer into the group.
The third work in the exhibition is entitled Savings. It consists of stacks of uniform, mass-produced products. Only at second glance do we realize that the objects manifest individual differences inasmuch as each can, each cardboard box and even each pallet has its own individual number. Here, too, mirrors have been used to make us think more about the multiplicatory and imitative aspects of consumer behaviour. With subdued irony, Lorena Herrera Rashid holds a mirror up to the viewer. The world in which we live is so dominated by mass media, artificiality, consumerism and wastage that we are sometimes no longer able to distinguish between the natural and the artificial world. We are made to sense this phenomenon not only in each individual work but also in the exhibition as a whole. The artist skilfully involves the viewer, placing him or her in a direct rapport with the sculptures and, in so doing, confronting them with critical, thought-provoking impulses that call for completely new solutions – but the end is open...
7 February - 29 March 2014
The forthcoming exhibition will be Mexican-born Lorena Herrera Rashid's second one at the Rüdiger Schöttle Gallery. Entitled New Solutions, it has as its themes such aspects of modern human life as mass media, consumerism, artificiality, waste and imitation. The work No One consists of a rose in an upturned glass vase and two elaborated hands. The rose has been in the vase for a good twelve months and while it has retained its original shape it has lost its red colour, thus ideally symbolizing death and mortality. Combined with the hands, the glass vase is strongly reminiscent of a fortune teller's glass ball, and this association of ideas then brings to the fore the notion of temporality itself, for the past, the present and the future are here experienced within one and the same moment.
The figures entitled New Solutions I – IV may be understood to represent either the smallest social unit, the family, or the individual within society. Nos. I to III are differently sized sculptures positioned as a group in front of a mirror. While the figures are constructed in different ways and from different materials, such as wood, sheets of plywood, aluminium and furniture parts, the addition of shop-window dummies' hands gives them a human aspect. The mirror not only duplicates the scene but also, when viewed from a certain angle, integrates the viewer into the group.
The third work in the exhibition is entitled Savings. It consists of stacks of uniform, mass-produced products. Only at second glance do we realize that the objects manifest individual differences inasmuch as each can, each cardboard box and even each pallet has its own individual number. Here, too, mirrors have been used to make us think more about the multiplicatory and imitative aspects of consumer behaviour. With subdued irony, Lorena Herrera Rashid holds a mirror up to the viewer. The world in which we live is so dominated by mass media, artificiality, consumerism and wastage that we are sometimes no longer able to distinguish between the natural and the artificial world. We are made to sense this phenomenon not only in each individual work but also in the exhibition as a whole. The artist skilfully involves the viewer, placing him or her in a direct rapport with the sculptures and, in so doing, confronting them with critical, thought-provoking impulses that call for completely new solutions – but the end is open...