Michail Pirgelis
06 April - 07 May 2011
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| © Michail Pirgelis |
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MICHAIL PIRGELIS
6 April – 7 May, 2011
Sprüth Magers London is pleased to present ‘Los Angeles’ featuring new
work by the German-born, Greek artist Michail Pirgelis in his first solo
exhibition in the U.K. A graduate of the prestigious Düsseldorf Academy
and former Master student of Rosemarie Trockel, Pirgelis’ artistic
practice explores the sculptural possibilities of decommissioned
airplane parts.
Since 2003, Pirgelis has made frequent visits to the ‘boneyards’ of
Arizona and California, the now legendary resting places and holding
facilities of scores of obsolete aircraft and flight-related
paraphernalia. The planes either await re-deployment or are stripped
piece-by-piece of their highly valuable parts which are incorporated
back into other still viable vessels, with some craft remaining little
more than carcasses. Pirgelis’ sculptures are often carefully hybridised
amalgams of these incongruous aircraft components. Untitled (From the
Air Saddles #7) (2011) is one of a series of pieces that fuse thick
rubber strops with slices of the highly polished fuselage with the
window frames still visible; the latter a small yet significant
indication of a now disavowed functionality. However, in utilising
sought-after materials that continue to have a use-value in the
multi-billion dollar aviation industry, the sculptures, regardless of
modification, have the potential to resume their previous ‘life’ once
again, as functioning parts of an aircraft. It is all the more
significant that Pirgelis’ works have on occasion been reintegrated back
into functioning aircraft.
For Pirgelis, ‘Los Angeles’ has been the hub of his travels to the
U.S.A. and is emblematic of the bygone era of exclusivity and luxury
once associated with aviation. The highly polished aluminium surfaces of
Mainframe (2011) and Untitled (Kleines Fenster / Small Window) (2011)
(working title) recall the golden days of flight, and signal an attempt
to revivify the long lost aura associated with aviation, if not the
glamour that has been eroded by a proliferation of budget airlines that
have rendered flight a form of mass transportation. In direct contrast
with these works, nestled in the corner of the gallery, Schmale Kapsel /
Narrow Capsule (2011) explores the physicality of interior aircraft
spaces and represents the ‘non-glamorous’ rationalisation of space
within the streamlined confines of an aircraft. The viewer is faced with
the physical and technological fact of flight: the normally invisible
workings of the capsule, where cables and pipes protrude and expose the
human factor - if not human error - in the construction of aircraft
parts. The former glory of flight, with its fetishization of aircrafts
and the accoutrements of flight itself, could also have a counterpart
here in the fetish-like appearance of the sculptural objects that have
emerged from these forsaken airplanes.
Despite the connotations of disembodied airplane parts, Pirgelis does
not aim to raise the spectre of the plane crash; on principle, Pirgelis
never uses parts that have come from plane wreckage. Through his
artistic practice, what he seeks to explore is the notion of ‘fragility’
as he calls it, as an aspect of ‘psychological experience.’ Man’s dream
of flying, if not the hubris associated with it, embodies this
fragility by drawing the finest of lines between complete success and
total failure. Flight will always be an unnatural phenomenon for human
beings and the ability to comprehend the science of flight, that which
makes it technologically possible, remains for many the very thing we
attempt - perhaps out of fear - to psychologically defer if not repress.
Michail Pirgelis was born in 1976 in Essen, Germany and raised in
Xanthi, Greece. He lives and works in Cologne. In 2010 Pirgelis was the
recipient of the Audi Art Award for ‘New Positions’ at Art Cologne and
was also awarded the Schloss Ringenberg Stipendium. In 2008 he was the
first artist to be presented with the Adolf Loos-Preis by the Van den
Valentyn Foundation, Cologne. Solo shows include: ‘Aerotopie’ at
Förderverein Aktuelle Kunst, Münster (2006); ‘Akropolis’ at Sprüth
Magers, Berlin (2010) and ‘Aeromaritime’ Artothek Cologne (2011). Group
exhibitions include: ‘Play’ at the Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf (2005);
‘Schneeweiss’, a joint show with Rosemarie Trockel, at the
Rohrmeisterei, Schwerte (2006); ‘Mondi Possibili’ at Sprüth Magers,
Cologne (2006); ‘Quattro Stelle’ at the Villa Romana, Florence (2007);
‘Great Expectations’ at ArtLab21, Los Angeles (2008); ‘Saar Förderpreis
Junge Kunst 2008’ at Kunstverein Ludwigshafen (2009); ‘Der Westen
leuchtet’ at Kunstmuseum Bonn (2010); and ‘Neues Rheinland’ at Museum
Morsbroich, Leverkusen (2010).
www.spruethmagers.com
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