Schau Ort

Everyone Else Was Either Busy Or Dead

09 Jun - 21 Jul 2012

EVERYONE ELSE WAS EITHER BUSY OR DEAD
Michiel Ceulers, Ruben Grilo, Kianoosh Motallebi, Alex Pollard, Gino Saccone, Steve Van den Bosch
9 June - 21 July 2012

We are proud to announce our upcoming group exhibition: ,everyone else was either busy or dead.
Please join us for the opening on 8 June, 2012, from 6 to 9 pm.
On Saturday, 9 June and Sunday, 10 June all Zurich galleries will be open from 11 am to 5 pm for our annual pre-Art-Basel weekend.

After Michiel Ceuler's first Zurich solo-exhibition 2011 at SCHAU ORT, the Belgian artist now invited five artists whose work he appreciates to exhibit together with him at our gallery: Rubén Grilo, Kianoosh Motallebi, Alex Pollard, Gino Saccone and Steve Van den Bosch. Except for Pollard, who studied at Glasgow School of art, all artists were stipends at the renowned Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. According to Ceulers, what relates the works of these artists to his own is a feeling of poetry and animism - as well as a big dash of humor.

Michiel Ceulers' (1986, Waregem) paintings investigate the medium of paint. At first, these inconvenient, difficult to read, uncompromising and very diverse paintings are hard to grasp but on a second and third look, these small, rather dirty paintings are very precise and sharply handled, cheekily referencing previous historical styles.
Since Michiel Ceulers will produce his works for our upcoming exhibition in situ shortly before the opening, we cannot present you with further information on them at this point. Instead, please enjoy this typical rear side view of an older work by Ceulers as a place-holder of what is to come...

"Rubén Grilo (1981, Lugo), who champions visual technology as content, tries to investigate the interpretation process as well as how pieces acquire meaning in relation to different codes or presentation strategies within the institutional framework." (excerpt from text by Agar Ledo, 2011).

For this exhibition, Grilo presents us with a selection of his Joke Drawings, laserprints on A4 sized paper

"Kianoosh Motallebi (1982, Liverpool) is in search for bigger truths. Although he did try and study Medicine and Physics, he became frustrated by the narrowness of the knowledge he gained – as he was longing to see and discover the bigger picture. Soon he realised that in truth there is always a kind of paradox, metaphysically spoken but also in our daily lives. Gaining knowledge makes you realise there is still a lot more to know but at the same time you are getting closer to the truth." (excerpt from text by alexander(at)overdose.am)
We look forward to presenting a recent untitled work consiting of an incandescent light bulb coated with a layer of aluminum.

Alex Pollard’s (1977, Brighton) current body of work presents the artist as a situational narcissist, a figure no longer able to distinguish between himself and his persona as a projected character within the realm of the art world. Pollard asked various people to draw caricatures of him. This group included his friends, art world colleagues (such as curators and other artists), former students and tutors of his, as well as recent acquaintances. The results of these requests make manifest the awkward power relations within this network, the drawings ranging from the affectionately insulting to the politely flattering. They are a form of coerced collaboration, achieved through charm or obligation, folding the immaterial and emotional labour of the art business into the work itself. The caricatures are then incorporated into the design of commercially produced doormats, with paint and dirt occupying equal billing.

"Gino Saccone (1979, Jersey) is occupied with making sculptures, images and films that explore the basic mechanics of language and how information can be formulated and expressed. The works are the result of both symbolic and intuitive processes that are concerned with the potential for movement and metaphor to engender meaning and inspire a feeling. Through a process of inter-relating different elements Saccone intends to open up potential fictions, cultural references and psychological spaces." (excerpt from text by P/////AKT). We are excited to exhibit some of Saccone's sculptures and objects, as well as woven stereograms

"Being fascinated by dialing the wrong number, standing in an elevator, a misprint in a catalogue-caption or the mechanics of a joke, it’s the blank or breach that is laid bare by such mundane events that constitute the focus of Steve Van den Bosch’s work (1975, Antwerp) . Although the rather minimal means by which he articulates his ideas could be read more as an exercise in compulsive boredom or catatonia than a tribute to minimalism, these are calculated decoys used to open up the problematic space of the blank mentioned above. Not confined to any medium, he uses whatever is most efficiënt for a certain concept or attempts to conceptualize its inefficiency." (text Ellen de Bruijne Projects). At this exhibition, Steve Van den Bosch will show several different objects / sculptures and a very new video piece
 

Tags: Michiel Ceulers, N. Dash, Rubén Grilo