Pierre Bismuth
26 Nov 2011 - 05 Feb 2012
PIERRE BISMUTH
26 November, 2011 – 5 February, 2012
The exhibition exemplifies the imagination and desires behind early industrial era utopia, the heritage of which still outlines the limits of our political imagination today and substantiates this with the fact that contemporary Capitalism appears to have achieved Utopia. Abundance and excess of all kinds of products for consumption, mortgages and loans, leisure time and entertainment – all dreams of the past have become reality. Culture and the arts are today’s metaphors of abundance – the products of overproduction, an expression of the wealth and democratic values of a society.
Pierre Bismuth is one of France's foremost artists and a leading figure in conceptual art. Known for his intelligent dismantling of cultural products and the wry and often humorous shifts and 'misuses' to which he subjects his material making works out of the structuring conventions of other artworks and mass media products in order to expose different mechanisms of visibility and meaning.
Pierre Bismuth’s work tirelessly explores the multiple manifestations and product of knowledge and culture. It is engaged in a constant process of translation, of moving from one form to another, from one logic to another as if in search of a hidden meaning. But instead of revealing something concealed, Bismuth’s transformations aim at creating a new, parallel reality. Not an answer but a new question. The rules under which this new reality operates, sabotage the unique and fixed meaning of the cultural products from which it is initially derived.
By means of simple accumulation – an excess of material, of translations, of possibilities – the artist challenges any logic of efficiency and usefulness. His works are metaphors of human activity – proliferating and polluting until the logic and the energy of the system that engenders them is exhausted. In this seemingly aimless and hopeless activities Bismuth’s work manages to find the means for an effective transformation and ultimately to formulate a promise: no matter how structured and limited human activity and creativity are, freedom can be rescued from any closed system.
Bismuth's work has recently been shown at Witte de With (Rotterdam), the New Museum (New York), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris/Metz), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), M HKA (Antwerp), la Biennale de Lyon, Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane) and the British Film Institute (London).
He is represented by Team Gallery (New York), Jan Mot (Brussels), Bugada Cargnel Galerie (Paris) and Christine Konig (Vienna). In 2005 he won the best original screenplay at the 77th Academy Awards along with Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman for the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
26 November, 2011 – 5 February, 2012
The exhibition exemplifies the imagination and desires behind early industrial era utopia, the heritage of which still outlines the limits of our political imagination today and substantiates this with the fact that contemporary Capitalism appears to have achieved Utopia. Abundance and excess of all kinds of products for consumption, mortgages and loans, leisure time and entertainment – all dreams of the past have become reality. Culture and the arts are today’s metaphors of abundance – the products of overproduction, an expression of the wealth and democratic values of a society.
Pierre Bismuth is one of France's foremost artists and a leading figure in conceptual art. Known for his intelligent dismantling of cultural products and the wry and often humorous shifts and 'misuses' to which he subjects his material making works out of the structuring conventions of other artworks and mass media products in order to expose different mechanisms of visibility and meaning.
Pierre Bismuth’s work tirelessly explores the multiple manifestations and product of knowledge and culture. It is engaged in a constant process of translation, of moving from one form to another, from one logic to another as if in search of a hidden meaning. But instead of revealing something concealed, Bismuth’s transformations aim at creating a new, parallel reality. Not an answer but a new question. The rules under which this new reality operates, sabotage the unique and fixed meaning of the cultural products from which it is initially derived.
By means of simple accumulation – an excess of material, of translations, of possibilities – the artist challenges any logic of efficiency and usefulness. His works are metaphors of human activity – proliferating and polluting until the logic and the energy of the system that engenders them is exhausted. In this seemingly aimless and hopeless activities Bismuth’s work manages to find the means for an effective transformation and ultimately to formulate a promise: no matter how structured and limited human activity and creativity are, freedom can be rescued from any closed system.
Bismuth's work has recently been shown at Witte de With (Rotterdam), the New Museum (New York), Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris/Metz), Castello di Rivoli (Turin), M HKA (Antwerp), la Biennale de Lyon, Queensland Art Gallery (Brisbane) and the British Film Institute (London).
He is represented by Team Gallery (New York), Jan Mot (Brussels), Bugada Cargnel Galerie (Paris) and Christine Konig (Vienna). In 2005 he won the best original screenplay at the 77th Academy Awards along with Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman for the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.