Art Dubai 2013

20 - 23 March 2013

Booth A29

ARNDT is pleased to show a solo presentation by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye at Art Dubai 2013.

Belgian artist Wim Delvoye (b. 1965) is one of the key artists of our era, an unsettling, surreal, contradictory artist, tied to a decontextualized symbolic duality, yet a legitimate child of Flemish artistic tradition. By quoting and inserting Gothic architecture in functional objects and industrial machinery Delvoye aestheticizes them and takes the creative process to the extreme.
By tackling the issue of the ornament head-on, Wim Delvoye succeeds in transgressing it, breaking through the supposed coherence between the decorative motif and its material support. He became more widely known, because of his famous monumental work, the Cement Truck, a life-sized cement truck carved out of teak wood in the style of the seventeenth-century Flemish baroque. Wim Delvoye then continued to explore the artistic styles of the past and their interpretation with contemporary themes and techniques, moving from traditional carved wood to laser-cut steel to create sculptures of modern construction equipment in a Gothic or baroque style. As a contemporary artist, Wim Delvoye has rehabilitated the ornament, reintroducing it to the current artistic scene after it had been eradicated from it in the twentieth century.
In 2009 he was a guest at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, in 2010 at the Musée Rodin in Paris, in 2011 at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels and in 2012 at the Louvre, where he set his sights on the Napoleon III apartments, all gilt and crimson velvet, showing his creations as a counterpoint to the museum’s collections. It is in this vein that the artist, who was searching for a perfect location to establish an interaction between his works and Arab-Muslim art, discovered the fabulous treasure called the Aleppo salon, with its profusion of arabesques, which were in tune with his artistic concerns. At Art Dubai 2013 Delvoye shows fourteen recent works, in bronze, steel and made of tyres, for which he designed a specific set-up combining history with modernity. The sculptures further the artist’s interest in the dialogue between Western and extra-European arts, more specifically with the Islamic arts, by combining his steel lacework sculpture with geometric patterns and an Arabic-Islamic inspiration.

Please click here to view a list of exhibited works.

For further information please contact Tobias Sirtl (tobias@arndtberlin.com).

Venue:
Art Dubai is held at the Madinat Arena, part of the beachside Madinat Jumeirah Resort, Dubai, UAE, Al Sufouh Road (4th Interchange on Sheikh Zayed Road).
 

05.11.2011 - 29.02.2012
THE EPHEMERAL
Exhibition website

Group show with works by:
Absalon | Moridja Kitenge Banza | Joseph Beuys | Hanne Darboven | Wim Delvoye | Rebecca Horn | Mathilde ter Heijne | Jannis Kounellis | Keisuke Matsuura  | Christian Megert | Heinz Mack | David Noonan | Henk Peeters | Otto Piene | Jackson Pollock | Julian Rosefeldt | Matt Saunders | Chiharu Shiota | Miroslav Tichý | Grazia Toderi | Susan Turcot | Franz West | Nick van Woert | Yang Jiechang

The Ephemeral is an exhibition of 26 artists all dealing with elements and traces of the morbid, the delicate, and the temporary. They convey that small gestures can have a big impact and that especially the “silent scream” can be heard crystal clear once you fade out the ambient noise (das Grundrauschen) that surrounds us everywhere today.
Artists have always analyzed questions of the ephemeral in their work. In doing so, many artists have not merely used materials and means of expression that might disintegrate or which border on the immaterial, but rather have foregrounded the very changeability of the artwork itself.
Thus, for instance, the works of Jannis Kounellis contrast substantial materials such as coal and metal with mutable or intangible materials such as frost covering slabs or fire burning in lamps fuelled by a limited supply of petroleum.
Often enough, the ephemeral appears to be a fragile apparition wavering on the edge of existence, such as in a drawing by Joseph Beuys; the ephemeral draws its power precisely from its evanescence. But the ephemeral can also function as a warning highlighting the transience of all being. Such memento mori, remind the viewer of death and the finitude of the self. In a pietà by Beuys, the memento mori is twisted into a promise that death might not be the final station after all. The art of Miroslav Tichý seeks to apprehend the brevity of the moment by dwelling on a young girl bathing, suffused with the full romantic melancholy of one who is aware that beauty fades.
Some creative acts appear brief only when measured solely by temporal criteria. The flash of insight and inspiration is followed by what can be a protracted, laborious process, yet the final product nevertheless preserves the freshness and revelation of the distilled thought. The artwork transforms the thought into a form that allows the moment to be recreated, without allowing it, in its eternal repetition, to grow insipid. Movement too belongs to the fleeting manifestations of art, such as the elegant, occasionally jerky but nevertheless graceful motions of Rebecca Horn’s machines, or a historical moment captured on video. Julian Rosefeldt and Piero Steinle have gathered historical photographs of explosions of equally historic buildings to a pandemonium of iconoclasm. The time of the explosion becomes a point in time demonstrating both the finite nature of the moment as well as the powerful effects beyond the destruction. Even destroyed these moment keep their meaning. In these moments proves to be the special aura of the art, which is in the best position to act between the precarious and the constantly incomprehensible.
Grazia Toderi’s films have that ethereal and almost spiritual ambiance, impossible to localise in the past, present or future.
Heinz Mack had such an optimistic and constructive approach towards the future already in the works of his Zero phase in the 1960s: In his attempt to capture the traces and essence of light in his sculptures that look rather similar to scientific installations than to at that time traditional artworks, his work even 50 years later still looks like coming directly back from the future to pay us a visit.
The exhibition will be accompanied by its own webpage. Please visit www.theephemeral.com, contact us for further information at info@arndtberlin.com or download the online catalogue.

30.04. - 31.05.2010
Changing The World
Erik Bulatov, Sophie Calle, William Cordova, Wim Delvoye, Anton Henning, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ilya und Emilia Kabakov, Jitish Kallat, Jon Kessler, Karsten Konrad, Julije Knifer, Enrique Martinez Celaya, Josephine Meckseper, Vik Muniz, Muntean Rosenblum, Julian Rosefeldt, Charles Sandison, Dennis Scholl, Nedko Solakov, Hiroshi Sugito, Ena Swansea, Mathilde Ter Heijne, Keith Tyson, Ralf Ziervogel...

ARNDT will inaugurate its new exhibition space during the “Berlin Gallery Weekend“ (30 April to 2 May 2010) on Friday, 30 April, from 5 - 10 p.m. Located on Potsdamer Strasse 96 in Berlin, the opening exhibition will feature new works by the core gallery Located on the second floor of the „Wintergarten Varieté“, ARNDT’s future spaces will encompass almost 400 m2, including a ballroom dated from the 19th century with an original wooden coffered ceiling of 5 meter height as main exhibition and “Signature Space”. Berlin based Canadian Architect David Saik, designer of numerous projects for the arts, has been commissioned for the project. Saik’s recent completed work includes studios for the artists Jeff Wall and Steven Shearer.
artists as well as invited guests: Erik Bulatov, Sophie Calle, William Cordova, Wim Delvoye, Gilbert & George, Anton Henning, Thomas Hirschhorn, Ilya und Emilia Kabakov, Jitish Kallat, Jon Kessler, Vik Muniz, Muntean Rosenblum, Julian Rosefeldt, Nedko Solakov, Mathilde ter Heijne, Keith Tyson, Ralf Ziervogel and others.

““Changing The World” argues that it is possible to change the world and that we must continually search for and strive to achieve this. “Changing the World” also posits that art and artists have the means and the potential to bring about change in our world. Artists question the world we live in, they challenge the status quo and our conventions, think introspectively and conjure up brand-new, alternative worlds. Many recent exhibitions have explored artists’ relationships with the world, among them “Being in the World” (Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection – Cifo Miami, 2009/2010), “Fare Mundi/Making Worlds” (53rd Venice Biennial, 2009), “Weltempfänger/World Receiver” (Kunsthalle Hamburg, 2007/2008), and the upcoming group exhibition “Promesses du Passé/Promises from the past” (Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 14 April to 19 July 2010).“ Art does not provide answers, it merely increases and refines the questions,” argued Jan Hoet in 1992 with his “documenta IX”. Like no other exhibition before it or since, the works of the artists opened the viewers’ eyes, stimulated, captivated and shocked their senses. It is this constant desire and courage to bring about change that I believe forms the common denominator and connection between even the most seemingly diverse artistic positions to which I dedicate my first exhibition.” Matthias Arndt
After pioneering in 1994, being the first commercial gallery with an international focus in former East Berlin, and after opening various gallery locations in Berlin Mitte over the past 16 years, Matthias Arndt positions himself for the first time in the former western part of Berlin, introducing at the same time a new vibrant art district to the international public.

To view a selection of the exhibited works, please click on the picture underneath.

ART BASEL HONG KONG 2015 - March 15 - 17, 2015

ARNDT is pleased to announce its participation at Art Basel Hong Kong 2015, taking place from March 15 - 17. We are looking forward to welcoming you at our BOOTH Hall 3 C30.

Participating Artists: Jumaldi Alfi, Stephan Balkenhol, Jigger Cruz, Wim Delvoye, Gilbert & George, Yang Jiechang, Heinz Mack, Rudi Mantofani, Vik Muniz, Eko Nugroho, Norberto Roldan, Arin Dwihartanto Sunaryo, Rodel Tapaya and Qiu Zhijie.

Please click here to see a preliminary list of the exhibited artworks

Venue:
Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre
1 Harbour Road
Wan Chai, Hong Kong

ARNDT Berlin
Potsdamer Strasse 96
10785 Berlin
info@arndtberlin.com