Gallery OED (Kochi, India), Institute Cervantes (New Delhi). 10.12.2016 / 2.2.2017
Adam Nankervis and David Medalla ‘The Mondrian Fun Club’, Avtar Singh, Chris Evans and Duncan Hamilton ‘All Horizons Club’, Charo Garaigorta and Artium Basque Museum Center for Contemporary Art, Elizabeth Chadwick, Clair Joy ‘Mecklenburg Square Garden Project’, David Cross, Emma Smith, Finlay Taylor ‘Millimeter’, Kate Scrivener, Manu Uranga, Mike Marshall, Niroj Satpath, Sharmila Samant, Tim O’Riley, Tushar Joag, Uriel Orlow, Warren Neidich. And a selection of videos by Adam Nankervis and Daniel Kupferberg, Aditi Kulkarni, Anri Sala, Asim Waqif, Daniel Aguilar Ruvalcaba, Diptej Vernekar, Esteban Torres Ayastuy, Jeremy Deller, Kamal Swaroop, Madelaine Jimenez Santil, Mike Marshall, Mithu Sen, Ole Hagen, Parvathi Nayar, Pranay Dutta, Shimabuku, Simon Woolham, Sujit Mallik, Superflex, Surabhi Saraf, Szu Han Chen, Tara Kelton, The Beauty Inspector, Vipin Dhanurdharan. Co-curated by Vaibhav Raj Shah, Finlay Taylor, Jasone Miranda-Bilbao.
Horizon: Against Nature view of the installation at Gallery OED
The project has two parts that result in two different exhibitions. The first part takes place at Gallery OED (Kochi, India) parallel to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2016; the second takes place at the Cervantes Institute New Delhi as a collateral event of the India Art Fair 2017.
Horizon: Against Nature proposes that nature is a horizon that can be approached indefinitely and yet never completely grasped. The idea ‘Against Nature’ takes inspiration from the French fiction novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans A Rebours published in France in 1884. The main protagonist, Des Esseintes, is a highly sensitive, neurotic anti- hero and aesthete who escapes Paris for the countryside and abandons himself to a life of decadence, fine art and literature in order to criticize the vulgarity of society. This was the time before the industrial revolution, when society and the prevalent ideology were seen in terms of nature and the beauty of its forms, structures and geometry. Pre industrial revolution, the same umbrella of Nature, held together a unity of aims and beliefs that served the joint purposes of science, religion and art.
Today, and within a now post-industrial and late capitalist global logic, Nature is often narrowly taken as being in opposition to culture. Science, art and religion, have become disconnected: science has favored the purely technical, religion has adopted a confused and transcendent notion of God, and art has tended towards reflecting this present state of confusion with the faint hope that it can somehow contribute to its eradication. Our project attempts to pull science, religion, art and nature back together under the reconfigured rubric of nature / horizon and unite them inside of regions between visibility and invisibility. In attempting to visualize and move toward the horizon, a range of motion begins that may potentially connect memories, ideas, feelings and all aspects of life to the infinity of the universe.
Jasone Miranda-Bilbao
Finlay Taylor (www.finlaytaylor.info), @fin_pupapress
Vaibhav Raj Shah (www.thebeautyinspector.com), @vaibhavrajshahahaha
At Gallery OED the exhibition consisted of a program of artist videos. Adam Nankervis and Daniel Kupferberg The Dancing Volcanoes , 2013. As part of The Mondrian Fun Club, Adam Nankervis and David Medalla. Duration 5:50 min. Aditi Kulkarni Flower Pot. Duration: 2:21 min. Anri Sala Missing Landscape, 2001. Duration 15 min. Asim Waqif An Experiment on M.G. Road. Duration: 6:53 min. Daniel Aguilar Ruvacaba Tutorial: How to Upgrade your Transgenic Apple to Organic Apple. Duration 1:35 min. Diptej Vernekar Blackhole. Duration 6:36 min. Esteban Torres Ayastuy Marmalade, 2012. Duration 2:26 min. Mask, 2015. Duration 1:32 min. Jeremy Deller Our hobby is Depeche Mode, 2006. Jeremy Deller in collaboration with Nick Abrahams. Duration 63min. Kamal Swaroop Terrorist Tadpoles. Duration 5:53 min. Mike Marshall Prism splits light, 2011. Duration 11:08 min. Mithu Sen Icarus. Duration 5:04 min. Ole Hagen Shopkeeper, 2010. Duration 4:55 min. Parvathi Nayar Want-Need-Must. Duration 2:23 min. Pranay Dutta Circuital Parallel. Duration 3:45 min. Shimabuku Then I decided to give a tour of Tokyo to the octopus from Akashi, 2000. Duration 6:56 min. Simon Woolham Performing paper, 2013. Duration 8:50 min. Sujit Mallik Moon walk, 2014. From the series Roofs and Grounds. Duration 3:14 min. Superflex Burning car, 2008. Duration 11 min. Surabhi Saraf Intensities. Duration 10:20 mib. Szu Han Chen Take me there. Duration 5:15 min. Tara Kelton Duet ( Synchronised Swimmers). Duration 2:01 min. The Beauty Inspector and Madeline Jimenez Santil Prescripcion. Duration 4:48 min. Tim O’Riley Mental Exercise ,2007. Super 8 film / animation. Exhibition copy on digital. Duration 3:39 min. Vipin Dhanurdharan Untitled Festivals. Duration 2:59 min.
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At the Cervantes Institute the exhibition consisted of the video program shown at OED Gallery and added works in various media. View of the installation at the Cervantes Institute, New Delhi
Warren Neidich Installation, wood, plexiglass, digital prints, 2013. Red Star, digital print, 33,9 x 56,8 cm. Selestial Sphinx, digital print, 33,9 x 53,8 cm. MORSI Military Deny Charges of Torture, digital print, 33,9 x 53,8 cm. Time Metamorphosis, digital print, 33,9 x 56,8 cm. How do you translate a text that is not a text? How do you perform a score that is not a score?, 2013. HD video. Duration 9:02 min.
‘During his month-long residency at Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Warren Neidich made a series of abstract musical compositions, called graphic scores, that used found newspaper images and bits of text instead of notes. These materials were then transferred upon music composition paper, composed of eight to sixteen staffs, with scotch tape, producing a paradoxical and hybrid drawing/score. Together these scores formed a pictorial archive of the recent political events occurring in Cairo branded The Egyptian Arab Spring. Twenty-two Cairo-based virtuosic musicians, whose specialty ranged from classical oud and tabla to electronic sound, were invited to the First Floor Gallery to read and react to these scores in an improvisational manner, leading to abstracted, experimental live performances. Participating performers: Hashem Aly, Yvonne Buchheim, Bahaa El-Ansary, Omar El-Deeb, Ahmed Safi El Din, Mahmoud El Saghir, Nadah El Shazly, Shahir Eschander, Mohamed Abdelfattah Ibrahim, Ashiq Khondker Wael Leheta, Ayman Mabrouk, Adam Miller, Amr Mohamed, Koen Nutters, Mohamed Refaat, Michelle Rounds, Alaa Hussein Saber, Ibrahim Salah, Hassam Shehata, Mahmoud Tarik, Esam Abdelhamid, John Verlenden, Robert Williams, Hassan Zaky, Khaled Kaddal, Ayman Asfour.’
Sharmila Samant A Factory Made Saree, 2006. Coca-Cola and diet Coke crowns linked together with metal shackles. Design based on the Tangail saree, a type popularly worn by women in Calcutta at the time of puja. Dimensions 500x110x 30.50 cm
Kate Scrivener Invisible Systems, London Twigs, 2017. Dry point on paper hung on pins, 61x55cm
Finlay Taylor Good Work (a rope as long as a flying fishes flight), 2017. 50 meter rope, balloon, helium, hook and bricks acquired in New Delhi. Dimensions vary
Uriel Orlow Unmade Film: The Score, 2013/2014. 15’, stereo audio.
Unmade Film: The Score is a musical soundtrack for an unmade film about the Palestinian village Deir Yassin just outside of Jerusalem.
‘Deir Yassin was depopulated in a massacre by Zionist paramilitaries in April 1948 and its remaining buildings became the Israeli mental hospital Kfar Shaul which initially specialized in treating Holocaust survivors. Unmade Film is an impossible film, fragmented into its constituent parts; an expansive collection of audio-visual works that point to the structure of an l am but never fully become one. Unmade Film: The Score was first performed live at Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center in Ramallah on 9 April 2013. It was developed and performed collectively with the musicians Tareq Abboushi, Donia Jarrar, Dirar Kalash, Maya Khaldi, Tala Khoury, Stormtrap.’
Emma Smith We are All Ghosts - The Hackney Ghost, 2016. Headphones and sitting. Duration 11.03 min. Mixed and Mastered by Benedict Goodwin. Voices: Brendan Clarke, Archie Clarke, Willoughby Cunningham, Geraldine Ewer, Steven Geddes, Benedict Goodwin, Gary Oldknow, Emma Smith
Manu Uranga Telarra, Gurea (Our making thread into cloth), 2016. Wool on fabric, 200x100x30 cm
Barbara Pfenningstorff Mecklenburgh Square Non-site, 2015. Oil on canvas, 200x50 cm
Charo Garaigorta and Artium Basque Museum of Contemporary Art (Vitoria-Gazteiz, Spain) Wonder Wall, 10/12/2014 – 30/08/2015. The Wonder Wall is an educational project with exhibition format led by Charo Garaigorta at the Museum Artium. It consists of displaying an original work from the Museum’s collection for a limited period and invite visitors to comment, their notes are hung next to the work at the end of each day and later archived by the Museum. At Horizon: Against Nature ‘Wonder Wall’ includes a digital photograph by Gonzalo Lebrija, Sín título (2010), provided by the Museum together with the notes written by their visitors (translated to English by Ioar Arana), a chair, table and notepad for visitors at Cervantes to add their own. We followed the same process as Artium - at the end of each day we hung their comments next to Lebrija’s photogrpah. After the exhibition came down, all notes and photograph were returned to Museum Artium where they will be archived with their own
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At the front Niroj Satpahty Stuffed Young Goats, 2016. Stuffed young goats; at the back Black Mole, 2016. Double-sided painting made with multiple recycled materials supported by an external stretcher pinned with clips (waste carpet, clay, cow dung, grass, rice husk, mustard oil, fenugreek, powder wood, dust, various type cloth, paper and paint). To the left Tushar Joag Fluid Dynamics, 2010. Pen and inks on paper framed. 99x152.4 cm. To the right Manu Uranga. Far right Sujit Mallik Man and Nature (fictional court room), 2016. Video installation of ongoing performance. HD Video on tablet, iron table, plant, humus matter. Duration 7:00 min.
Onya McCausland Terre (Red Line), 2016/2017. Earth pigment collected from the source of the lost river Fleet, London. 15cm width x length varies
David Cross Impasse, 1991/2016. Digital print, 107x85 cm. This photograph was taken with a medium format camera, which reflected that scene back to front like the rear view mirror in a car. The artist made the exposure on transparency, or reversal film, so when it was turned over on the light box, he was repositioned in space and time as though looking at the camera’s ground glass screen to compose the shot.
Cecile Johnson Soliz Painted Line (hung), 2016. Gloss paint on newsprint paper, wood. Dimensions vary
Avtar Singh Battle for Parijata Tree. Mahisasur Mardini, Demon killing, 2016. Three unframed oil and acrylic paintings on canvas. Dimensions 30.5x30.5 cm
Clair Joy Canopy (Tehran–Oslo), 2015. Oil on canvas and original ropes used to attach the work to the trees at McKlenburg Square (London) during the exhibition 'En Plein Air' (2015). 153x270 cm.
Clair Joy has also selected the works of artists Barbara Pfenningstorff, Onya McCausland and Cecile Johnson Soliz, shown at the Cervantes Institute. These works were originally exhibited as part of the Mecklenburgh Square Garden Project and the four works, Joy’s included, form an autonomous exhibition that operates from within Horizon: Against Nature. The Mecklenburgh Square Garden Project is an ongoing project conceived by Clair Joy as a way of providing an opportunity for artists to realise work in the open air and in a wide range of media, exploring the possibilities that the context of this community garden enables, calls for and provokes.
All Horizons Club (Chris Evans & Duncan Hamilton) Ten Popular Feelings, 2000. Ten Popular Feelings is a chronological series of recordings of riots, worldwide, originally produced as an edition of 500 CD’s distributed free, by hand, on the streets of Bregenz, Austria on July 18th 2000. The work comes to Instituto Cervantes New Delhi in the form of an unlimited free audio download
Installation view, left to right Mike Marshall, Millimiter02, Clair Joy, All Horizons Club, Warren Neidich, Finlay Taylor
millimetre02 At 800 ̊ the Tokyo Kahuna will be moving to Montana soon, yes they will, 2015. It includes the work of James Keith, Charcoal Prints (Mono prints made by direct pressure). Yuta Segawa, Ceramic pots (Porcelain and glazes). Fernando Saiki, Yubizushi (Woodblock print). Bob Matthews, Ultra violet days (Acrylic and oil on fabric).
Millimeter is an exhibition space with a frame format that has fixed dimensions. It was devised by artists Finlay Taylor and Kate Scrivener, whose work is also included in the exhibition, as a site to host group exhibitions and force curators to consider and exploit scale, intimacy and the close juxtaposition of artworks. First Millimeter was shown in a Camberwell cafe in London during 2012. At present it is hosted by Kingsgate Project Space in London.
