ME CONTEMPORARY, NY ADELGADE 7, DK-1104 CPH | MALOU ERRITZØE, +45 21 48 30 26, ME@MECONTEMPORARY.COM
Preview Berlin
Featuring works by: Nin Brudermann (A), Marco Evaristti (DK), Milica Tomic (SRB)
From 9 - 11 September, 2011, ME contemporary will exhibit at Preview Berlin, the contemporary art fair featuring an exciting gathering of international artists and galleries. ME will present installations by three artists featured in the gallery, whose works, though varying greatly, touch upon core values in our society – from human rights and freedoms, to brotherhood and equality. Two of the above artists, Evaristti and Tomic, are also featured in the recently published, Art and Agenda – Political Art and Activism, a book that explores the inter-relationships between the newest art, activism,and the politics of 2011.
ME will feature Brooklyn-based artist Nin Brudermann's acclaimed work, Twelve O'Clock in London, at Preview 2011: A 1 Channel Video telling the story of Twelve O'Clock, alongside a large collage depicting a world map that during the many years of working on the project, functioned as command board. A work of tremendous scale with a glimpse of Utopian vision, Twelve O'Clock highlights an inter-governmental cooperation that occurs daily, where all nations simultaneously launch meteorological balloons in an effort to accomplish a global observation of the atmosphere. The video poetically documents the preparation and release of these meteorological balloons, from places as varied as Poland, Iran, and the Seychelles, creating a harmony of sounds and visual imagery for the viewer. The map illustrates the near-impossible complexity yet sheer simplicity and beauty of Brudermann's project and vision, a work of art in which the viewer can lose oneself and to which he can return countless times, yet find new, unseen corners, with each visit.
In his installation titled Strange Fruit, Danish/Chilean artist Marco Evaristti engages his audience in a dialogue – albeit an uncomfortable one – about the conflicts that plague our society and will ultimately lead to its undoing. Dangling from a large, bronze cast tree, hang three boxing bags, whose contents have been emptied and replaced with hair taken from three groups of people: Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The piece shines alight on religious intolerance, and reminds us that in the end, we are all victims, we are all perpetrators, and we are all ultimately responsible for one another. The image of dangling boxing bags – so intertwined with the notions of struggle, violence, and power –taunt the viewer into approaching the work, touching or hitting it,and engaging with one self's own hatred and bias. Evaristti's Strange Fruit, pays homage to the haunting 1930's era ballad of the same name,famously performed by American jazz singer, Billie Holiday.
In Evaristti's newest series of works titled, All Good Things Must Come to an End, the process of death and the slow decay of life is placed on display –even celebrated – for its beauty and inevitability. The components of the installation include the flower centerpiece, whose blossoms are made of thin slivers of meat, and seven photographs documenting the rapid demise of their subject. Evaristti pictures this process of decay – like the process of birth and aging – as it is all part of our inevitable natural process, and one to which we all eventually succumb. In conceiving this project, Evaristti envisioned the biblical story of creation: six days where God made the universe,with each day building upon the success of its predecessor, until eventually, at its apex, life – both animal and human – populates the world and God rests. In Evaristti's version, however, the story of creation is inverted and on the final days, the sky falls into the earth, life ceases to exist, and God fades away.
ME will feature three projects by the Serbian artist Milica Tomic, whose works deal with a variety of social, political and existential issues, and lend an introspective look at questions about war, class,and national identity. Tomic's project, titled, Reading Capital, features photographs of prominent Texans who, from their desk in the financial community, or at home in their armchair, recite Karl Marx’s Capital.Part of a greater installation featuring photographs and a video of several self-proclaimed capitalists reciting Marx's famous verses,the artist – in this very simple gesture – illustrates how history is told by the victors, who in this case, are representatives of the capitalistic society. The result gives a humorous, if not ironic, manner to the work.
The artist's project, Container, revolves around a war crime that occurred in Afghanistan in November 2001,where Taliban prisoners were loaded into containers and transported through the desert for several days, en route to prison. During the transport, Northern Alliance soldiers fired their rifles against the container to create breathing holes, killing many within. The few prisoners who did survive were later executed. Although the story was later revealed, no pictures exist, which plays an integral role in the project. In developing this work, Tomic wanted to shine a light on the issue of identity: ones we take on and ones that are imposed upon us, one of victim vs. perpetrator, and how these titles easily shift with ones perception.
ME contemporary will also feature a single, key work from Tomic's ongoing work titled, One Day, Instead of One Night, a Burst of Machine-Gun Fire Will Flash, if Light Cannot Come Otherwise. The project itself consists of a video / photo action which shows Tomicin an artistic intervention in a public space, moving through the streets with an AK47 in hand visiting sites where antifascist actions have taken place. This ”action” was first performed in Belgrade,and later repeated in Copenhagen in 2010. The work selected for Preview Berlin – which shows the artist engaged in the Belgrade action – was also highlighted in the book, Art and Agenda – Political Art and Activism.
From 9 - 11 September, 2011, ME contemporary will exhibit at Preview Berlin, the contemporary art fair featuring an exciting gathering of international artists and galleries. ME will present installations by three artists featured in the gallery, whose works, though varying greatly, touch upon core values in our society – from human rights and freedoms, to brotherhood and equality. Two of the above artists, Evaristti and Tomic, are also featured in the recently published, Art and Agenda – Political Art and Activism, a book that explores the inter-relationships between the newest art, activism,and the politics of 2011.
ME will feature Brooklyn-based artist Nin Brudermann's acclaimed work, Twelve O'Clock in London, at Preview 2011: A 1 Channel Video telling the story of Twelve O'Clock, alongside a large collage depicting a world map that during the many years of working on the project, functioned as command board. A work of tremendous scale with a glimpse of Utopian vision, Twelve O'Clock highlights an inter-governmental cooperation that occurs daily, where all nations simultaneously launch meteorological balloons in an effort to accomplish a global observation of the atmosphere. The video poetically documents the preparation and release of these meteorological balloons, from places as varied as Poland, Iran, and the Seychelles, creating a harmony of sounds and visual imagery for the viewer. The map illustrates the near-impossible complexity yet sheer simplicity and beauty of Brudermann's project and vision, a work of art in which the viewer can lose oneself and to which he can return countless times, yet find new, unseen corners, with each visit.
In his installation titled Strange Fruit, Danish/Chilean artist Marco Evaristti engages his audience in a dialogue – albeit an uncomfortable one – about the conflicts that plague our society and will ultimately lead to its undoing. Dangling from a large, bronze cast tree, hang three boxing bags, whose contents have been emptied and replaced with hair taken from three groups of people: Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The piece shines alight on religious intolerance, and reminds us that in the end, we are all victims, we are all perpetrators, and we are all ultimately responsible for one another. The image of dangling boxing bags – so intertwined with the notions of struggle, violence, and power –taunt the viewer into approaching the work, touching or hitting it,and engaging with one self's own hatred and bias. Evaristti's Strange Fruit, pays homage to the haunting 1930's era ballad of the same name,famously performed by American jazz singer, Billie Holiday.
In Evaristti's newest series of works titled, All Good Things Must Come to an End, the process of death and the slow decay of life is placed on display –even celebrated – for its beauty and inevitability. The components of the installation include the flower centerpiece, whose blossoms are made of thin slivers of meat, and seven photographs documenting the rapid demise of their subject. Evaristti pictures this process of decay – like the process of birth and aging – as it is all part of our inevitable natural process, and one to which we all eventually succumb. In conceiving this project, Evaristti envisioned the biblical story of creation: six days where God made the universe,with each day building upon the success of its predecessor, until eventually, at its apex, life – both animal and human – populates the world and God rests. In Evaristti's version, however, the story of creation is inverted and on the final days, the sky falls into the earth, life ceases to exist, and God fades away.
ME will feature three projects by the Serbian artist Milica Tomic, whose works deal with a variety of social, political and existential issues, and lend an introspective look at questions about war, class,and national identity. Tomic's project, titled, Reading Capital, features photographs of prominent Texans who, from their desk in the financial community, or at home in their armchair, recite Karl Marx’s Capital.Part of a greater installation featuring photographs and a video of several self-proclaimed capitalists reciting Marx's famous verses,the artist – in this very simple gesture – illustrates how history is told by the victors, who in this case, are representatives of the capitalistic society. The result gives a humorous, if not ironic, manner to the work.
The artist's project, Container, revolves around a war crime that occurred in Afghanistan in November 2001,where Taliban prisoners were loaded into containers and transported through the desert for several days, en route to prison. During the transport, Northern Alliance soldiers fired their rifles against the container to create breathing holes, killing many within. The few prisoners who did survive were later executed. Although the story was later revealed, no pictures exist, which plays an integral role in the project. In developing this work, Tomic wanted to shine a light on the issue of identity: ones we take on and ones that are imposed upon us, one of victim vs. perpetrator, and how these titles easily shift with ones perception.
ME contemporary will also feature a single, key work from Tomic's ongoing work titled, One Day, Instead of One Night, a Burst of Machine-Gun Fire Will Flash, if Light Cannot Come Otherwise. The project itself consists of a video / photo action which shows Tomicin an artistic intervention in a public space, moving through the streets with an AK47 in hand visiting sites where antifascist actions have taken place. This ”action” was first performed in Belgrade,and later repeated in Copenhagen in 2010. The work selected for Preview Berlin – which shows the artist engaged in the Belgrade action – was also highlighted in the book, Art and Agenda – Political Art and Activism.
ADDITIONAL INFO:
ME contemporary will be located in booth # 29 at Preview Berlin.