Two years after GEOGRAPHIES (Darren Almond - Graham Gussin - Anri Sala), the gallery persues the declination of place and time experienced in a different manner, through GEOGRAPHIES #2, an exhibition confronting significant works by Bas Jan Ader - Graham Gussin - Marine Hugonnier - Hassan Khan - Anri Sala. In the present context, the relationship to geography is characterized by an existential attitude, a psycho-geography. It is sustained by the desire of giving up certainty, of getting lost - in quest of the sublime.
Bas Jan Ader - born in in Winschoten in 1942, Holland. In 1962-1963, a young artist, Bas Jan Ader is engaged as a crewman on an eleven month sailing voyage from Morocco to the United States. He settles in California. In few years, he develops a very intense conceptual artistic activity. Since the first journey, Bas Jan Ader does not cease his attempts to tie together the two continents. In 1975, as part of a series of works entitled "In search of the Miraculous", he undertakes a solitary sailing voyage, hoping to reach the English coast in 67 days. During the journey, he plans to realise works for an exhibition upon arrival in Holland. After three weeks, radio contact is lost. The wreckage of his boat is found off the Irish coast, in April 1976.
Through the photographic works presented here - three "Falls" : Broken Fall (Geometric), Westkapelle Holland, 1971, Pitfall on the Way to New Neo-Plasticism, Westkapelle Holland, 1971, and Broken Fall (Organic), Amsterdamse Bos, Holland, 1971, Bas Jan Ader expresses his scepticism towards artistic utopias, more precisely here towards the theory of Neo-Plasticism developped by Mondrian in search of an absolute equilibrium in the sense of harmony.
In May 2003, the gallery will present a solo exhibition of Bas Jan Ader.
Graham Gussin - born in London in 1960. Using a wide range of media including text, film and drawing, Graham Gussin’s work concerns our notion of time, space and scale. Through his use of science-fiction titles, film scenes or pieces of dialogue, Gussin explores or fuses together ideas about landscape, translation and movement. The viewer often plays a vital role when encountering the work as - in order to complete the image - we project our own experiences and our interpretations on what we perceive.
Costa del Sol, 1995, is a road movie. Fixed onto the front of a car travelling from a Spanish airport to Porto, the camera "blindly" films anything that it hits on the road. Pure displacement. This determined objectivity creates among the viewer a desire of subjectivity that progressively gets charged with his own mental images.
Marine Hugonnier - born in Paris in 1969. Through the most diverse media, Marine Hugonnier explores the infinitely fragile yet determining borderline of intuition - the shadow of the future perceived on the present moment.
Towards Tomorrow (International Date Line, Alaska), 2001, is a series of large colour photographs, the result of a journey the artist has undertaken to the strait of Bering, Alaska. From an island located in the middle of the strait, Marine Hugonnier has orientated her camera towards Siberia, photographing across the International Date Line, the invisible border between today and tomorrow. These images, literally beyond time, capture the future at the present time.
Hassan Khan - born in Cairo in 1975. He essentially works in the audio-visual medium producing videos and video installations as well as composing soundtracks for theatre and contemporary dance.
Tabla Dubb n°9, 2002, single channel video, is a short segment that also functions independently of Tabla Dubb, an audiovisual performance mixing music exploring the meeting point between the tabla and electronica with video sequences that arise out of investigating different spaces in the city (Cairo). In this work, two sets of time, two configurations of space, are collapsed unto each other. A haunting is documented. A trace created. A psycho-geography suggested but never explained. Hypnosis as strategy. A reading from el borda (a poem charting the transfer of the prophet‚s mantle through time, chanted on the occasion of his birth), heavily remixed, accompanies the piece. The recitation is about presence. A moment from the archive.
Anri Sala - born in Tirana in 1974. Lives in Paris. Invited to represent France at the Sao Paulo Biennal, 2002, Anri Sala has produced Blindfold, a double projection with sound surround. The music has been created in collaboration with by the Brasilian composer Wilson Sukorski. "15 minutes at dusk. The sun hits the shimmering metallic structures of empty billboards blinding the view, consequently censoring the sight. Slowly the sun passes away and the light fades out, letting the image loose. The space appears little by litle behind the billboards in a simultaneous projection of two shots in two cities, which move slowly, although not as slow as the sun. "
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