Today is the first day of artgenève’s sixth edition, including over 80 galleries from around the world. The human body–often quiet and alone–is explored by numerous artists, and there are many material contradictions at play. All is not as it may first seem.
Lange + Pult, Zurich and Auvernier
Lange + Pult are showing statement sculptures and installations with clean lines and minimal colour palettes. Although a multi-artist show—including Henrik Eiben, Mathieu Mercier and Olivier Mosset—there is a strong sense of coherence, with block blues and mint tones, and the odd injection of text and neon in the form of a simple “lazy” from Christian Robert-Tissot and a pink and turquoise smiley from Christian Herdeg.
55, Shanghai
55 favour eclecticism, combining Noritoshi Hirakawa’s charged, intimate—though not explicit—black and white photographs with installation, including Qinghai HU’s curvilinear motion, which makes art of polyester ribbon, and numerous imperfectly repeated pieces–from Bo Xiao’s intricate blades of grass, to Duxi Chen’s shadowy wave forms, created using mineral pigments on silk.
GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins and Havana
Hans Op De Beeck and Antony Gormley are both showing sculpture with GALLERIA CONTINUA, exploring both the twisted and the naturalistic human body (amongst other things) in characteristic cast iron and coated polyester. A wall-hung wood work from Cameroonian artist Pascale Marthine Tayou also features, alongside an intentionally garish blue and pink mirror work from Michelangelo Pistoletto and a large-scale print from Giovanni Ozzola.
Rotwand, Zurich
Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkáčová’s works are a highlight at Rotwand, showing a mix of prints and installation which often blur the line between naturally-formed and man-made objects, square rock forms in Clash! in fact made from paint-coated porcelain and the photographed shell forms in Things in Our Hands formed within a squeezed fist. There is also a strong selection of sculptural work from Luc Mattenberger and Constantin Luser, both artists employing everyday objects—circular mirrors, bicycle handles, metal tools—to create pieces which appear high-end and high-design.
Aspan Gallery, Almaty
Kazakstan’s Aspan Gallery are showing Yelena and Viktor Vorobyev’s joint works (as well as some by Yelena alone, which take a very different direction visually but not so much conceptually). Their images are fun and visually satisfying. In their Quick Production… works they send an iron through grass and snow, melting or burning a path as it goes. As well as Yelena Vorobyeva’s paintings, there are also works from Sergey Maslov, whose mystical and highly stylised aesthetic pairs very well with Vorobyeva’s.
Kasia Michalski Gallery, Warsaw
Kasia Michalski Gallery’s selection is enjoyably sinister, not least considering Damir Očko’s Study on shivering no 4 (bite study), in which a set of disembodied teeth are projected, unavoidably bringing to mind Samuel Beckett’s ferocious dramatic monologue Not I. His Untitled (The Third Degree), an intense black and white image collaged with a slice of mirror, is equally menacing. Agnieszka Brzezańska’s angular oil painting, reds, blacks and blues placed next to one another with blade-like precision, reflects this also.
GNYP, Berlin
A selection of Ulay’s late-90s polaroids from Series Lichaamstaal (Body Language) add a softness to GNYP’s booth—the body is presented as fleshy and unguarded, captured in moments of natural movement (removing a sock, rubbing one hand on the other) with erotic undertones. Myriam Mechita’s pencil works on paper are intense and contemplative, with wolves, contortionists and hanging figures depticted against blood-red backgrounds, and the moody Malevich’s Dream showing a greyscale figure sliced through and concealed by intense sections of black.
‘artgenève‘ runs from 26-29 January at Palexpo
