Three Statement In Painting
15 April - 28 May 2011
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THREE STATEMENT IN PAINTING
Francis Alÿs, John Armleder, Valérie Favre
15 April - 28 May, 2011
Galerie Peter Kilchmann is pleased to present its new spacious
facilities with three single exhibitions. The new gallery space situates
itself in the Diagonal building located on the Maag Areal, bordering on
Zurichs highest building to date, the Prime Tower. The Diagonal
building was erected as a work site in the 1940s with an architecture
committed to the style of international modernism. The building, now
under protection, reopens its doors after comprehensive renovations in
the last year. While a restaurant occupies the ground floor, Galerie
Peter Kilchmann shares the remaining floors with the gallery Eva
Presenhuber.
With Francis Alÿs, John Armleder and Valérie Favre, Peter Kilchmann is
pleased to present three artists who all also work in the medium of
painting, yet have very singular positions.
Francis Alÿs, *1959
Toujours essayé, Toujours raté. N'importe. Essayer encore. Rater encore,
Rater mieux. (Samuel Beckett, Cap au pire, 1983). On the occasion of
last year’s solo exhibition at the Tate Modern and later at WIELS,
Brussels – the last station of this exhibition will open at MoMA on May
8th, 2011 – Alÿs' long awaited piece Tornado (video, 55 min., 2000-2010)
had its premiere. Every year since 2001, Francis Alÿs has eagerly
awaited the month of March, the high point of the dry season, to drive
to the shoutheast edge of Mexico City, where smoky clouds rise from
cornfields burning after harvest, and grey swirls of ash and sand loom
against the horizon. Carrying his video camera, Alÿs runs towards these
tornadoes, hoping to catch them as a surfer catches a wave. Upon
reaching one, he penetrates its thick brown walls until he reaches the
peaceful eye of the storm, intending to stay as long as possible inside
the swirl. (C. Medina, "Survey", Francis Alÿs, Phaidon, 2007). The
artist used the long wait for the next tornado to do several paintings
on paper, canvas or wood, which will now be exhibited for the first
time. Francis Alÿs has been represented through the gallery since 1999.
John Armleder, *1948
John Armleder’s multifaceted work can be compared to an associative game
of art history, which until today doesn’t deny its proximity to the
aesthetic of Dada and Fluxus. As Maurice Denis suggested in 1890,
‘remember that before a painting is a war-horse, a nude woman or some
story or other, it is essentially a flat surface covered in colors
assembled in a certain order.' By way of updating this statement, and to
describe John Armleder’s recent work, we should add that the forms do
not necessarily have to be arranged in a certain order, the colors are
often 'just as good as they are in the pot', and the story must not be
scorned. The artist will design a space in the exhibit in which the
walls are covered with a carpet of hards, a certain ingrain wallpaper,
on which five large-format Drip paintings are then hung.
Valérie Favre, *1959
Valérie Favre emigrated to France when she was 18 years old. Paris
became her home for two decades. She painted, took acting classes and
received schooling as a filmmaker. 1998 she headed to Berlin and found
her way back to painting. The work of the artist, who grew up in Evilard
close to Biel, Switzerland, is full of narratives and countless
allusions. "I am a painting writer” Favre described herself in an
interview with Annka Karpowski (artnet, 24.02.11). Favre draws upon
memories and mostly paints in series. Until now, nine such cycles have
been completed. The Lapines (rabbit women) populate her canvases since
1999 and have a symbolic cosmos with the Lapines Univers. The alter ego
figures, in which Favre also paints herself as a hybrid female figure
with long rabbit ears, resemble comic figures, pin-up girls, as well as
the triumphant woman stan ding on a pedestal on the company logo of
Columbia Pictures. The Lapine Univers thus becomes not only an ironic
self-perception, but also a kind of media-theoretic reflection. Apart
from a selection of these series, the exhibition will also feature
paintings from the Selbstmord-Zyklus (Suicide Cycle). This series spans a
total of 70 pictures, which are all held in a format of 24 x 18 cm, and
which all show suicide variations. In the search for new death motifs,
Favre draws upon newspapers, old myths and legends, as well as the
repertoire of the cinema of the 1960s.
www.peterkilchmann.com/
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