–

Abandoned Pillar in Water Berlin, Spree (2014) by DEMIAN BICHSEL
from his solo exhibition Time and Reality II*
seen at the Freie Strasse 88, Basel
on Thursday, December 11, 2014
image © DEMIAN BICHSEL

–

*this exhibition is running through December 20, 2014

–

exhibition view at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, October 2014- January 2015
Simon Denny, The Personal Effects of Kim Dotcom, 2013/2014 *; Hito Steyerl, Strike, 2010; Archiv Valentina Tanni, The Great Wall of Memes, 2012-2014; Seth Price, How to disappear in America, 2014
Courtesy: Simon Denny: the artist; Galerie Buchholz Berlin/Cologne; Hito Steyerl: the artist; Valentina Tanni: the artist, Anonymous; Seth Price: the artist
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Gunnar Meier

–

Hito Steyerl, Strike, 2010
Courtesy the artist

–

exhibition view at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, October 2014- January 2015
Archiv Valentina Tanni, The Great Wall of Memes, 2012-2014; Simon Denny, The Personal Effects of Kim Dotcom, 2013/2014
Courtesy: Valentina Tanni: the artist, Anonymous;Simon Denny: the artist; Galerie Buchholz Berlin/Cologne
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Gunnar Meier

–

exhibition view at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, October 2014- January 2015
Simon Denny, The Personal Effects of Kim Dotcom, 2013/2014 *; Seth Price, How to disappear in America, 2014; !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Random Darknet Shopper, 2014
Courtesy: Simon Denny: the artist; Galerie Buchholz Berlin/CologneSeth Price: the artist; !Mediengruppe Bitnik: the artists
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Gunnar Meier

–

exhibition view at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, October 2014- January 2015
!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Random Darknet Shopper, 2014;Eva and Franco Mattes, Emily’s Video, 2012
Courtesy: !Mediengruppe Bitnik: the artists; Eva and Franco Mattes: the artists; Carroll/Fletcher, London
Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Gunnar Meier

–

exhibition view
!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Random Darknet Shopper, 2014, (detail)

–

!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Random Darknet Shopper, 2014, (ECTASY 10X YELLOW TWITTER 120MG MDMA)

–

!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Random Darknet Shopper, 2014, (ECTASY 10X YELLOW TWITTER 120MG MDMA)

–

exhibition view at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, October 2014- January 2015
Eva and Franco Mattes, Emily’s Video, 2012;!Mediengruppe Bitnik, Random Darknet Shopper, 2014
Courtesy: Eva and Franco Mattes: the artists; Carroll/Fletcher, London; !Mediengruppe Bitnik: the artists
photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Gunnar Meier

–

Eva and Franco Mattes, Emily’s Video, 2012
Courtesy the artists

–

Visiting the current exhibition entitled The Darknet – From Memes to Onionland. An Exploration at the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen is like browsing the web during hours; scrolling down pages, jumping from links to links, starting with funny memes and odd videos until you arrive to a dark void that you know it exists but you are not fully aware of it.

The first room of the exhibition is literally taken over by images: VALENTINA TANNI presents her collection of her best memes onto a massive freestanding wall, while the visitor is surrounded by the Personal Effects of KIM DOTCOM (2013/2014) by SIMON DENNY, a series of inkjet prints on canvas which features the entire inventory of confiscated items taken by New Zealand police during a raid on the home of German internet entrepreneur, KIM DOTCOM. The first aspect of the exhibition is somehow funny and most of the time absurd, just like Strike (2012), a video loop by HITO STEYERL which shows a woman dressed in black approaching dramatically a LCD monitor and striking its surface once with a chisel, leaving a multi-coloured web of fractures across it.

The more you enter into the exhibition, the more you penetrate into the dark side of the web, the one with hacker communications systems, stolen data, non-transparent mechanisms and browsers on which you can buy drugs, weapons or counterfeits among others. For the exhibition the !MEDIENGRUPPE BITNIK created the project Random Darknet Shopper (2014), which consists, according to the press release, ‘of an automated online shopping bot which has a budget of $100 in Bitcoins per week. Once a week the bot goes on shopping spree in the deep web where it randomly choses and purchases one item and has it mailed to the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen‘. All the goods received are presented in the last room of the exhibition into glass boxes along with a transcript of the ad from the Agora market place.

In the same space, the last piece of the show is the troubling video by EVA and FRANCO MATTES entitled Emily’s Video (2012) which they call “the worst video ever,” a combination of clips they found on illicit sites inside the Darknet. The actual video is not presented, what you see is only a compilation of the reactions of willing participants watching it, and leaving the viewer petrified by its own imagination.

After having seen the show, one question remains: is the darknet just evil? or can it be use in a good alternative way since the regular Internet seems to be screwed?

→ The Darknet – From Memes to Onionland. An Exploration is currently on view at the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen and is running through January 11th, 2015.

–

–

–

I really like the work of Finnish artist JAAKKO PALLASVUO but since a couple of months I’m truly thrilled by his incisive and sharp texts about art, identity and cultural metabolism among others. I really recommend to read the entire text about the bad boys – and more essays – via  http://dawsonscreek.info/

Please note that JAAKKO PALLASVUO is part of the exhibition The Last Artists Exhibition currently on view at Kunsthalle Helsinki until January 4, 2015.

–

Torso, 2014
concrete and cotton, 140 x 50 x 14 cm
image courtesy of the artist, and Laura Bartlett Gallery, London

–

Torso (2014) is a new work by Danish artist MARIE LUND which is part of her new solo exhibition entitled Dip currently on view at Laura Bartlett Gallery in London. This present work consists of a concrete sculpture shaped into a rectangular form onto which a piece of garment has been cast in and then removed leaving its trace, space or fragment, it has been reduced to. The effect is forceful, even monumental, but also ambiguous like if the artist has frozen the transition from real object to art object, from figuration to abstraction.

Inspired by the physicality of the human body and material concerns, this work as well as the whole exhibition aims to question the potential and limits of sculpture as object through a particular attention to surfaces, shapes, materials and processes.

→ Dip is on view at Laura Bartlett Gallery in London until January 18, 2015. Please note also that MARIE LUND will have a solo exhibition at Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe opening January 29th, 2015.

–

–

soundtrack by S S S S
performed at Le Romandie, Lausanne
on the occasion of Les Urbaines Festival
on Friday, December 4, 2014

– 

–

Out of the Absurdity of Life. Global Music, a conference by ethnomusicologist, music journalist and cultural producer THOMAS BURKHALTER 
screened and performed at the Post Digital Cultures Symposium*, Lausanne
on Saturday, December 6, 2014
image © wfw

–

* all the talks that took place during the symposium are available online here

–

–

detail from the installation it’s too hot to sleep (2014) by CEDRIC FARGUES
seen at Offspace Garage during the Festival Les Urbaines*, Lausanne
on Saturday, December 6, 2014
image © wfw

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

all images from the exhibition Hypocrisy Ladders by STEFAN TCHEREPNIN
at Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn NY, November-December 2014
courtesy of the artist and Real Fine Arts, Brooklyn NY

–

Born in St Petersburg in 1977, STEFAN TCHEREPNIN works as a multimedia artist whose practice consists of creating live electronic environments from a complex system of sampling, referencing and creation.

Nevertheless his last exhibition entitled Hypocrisy Ladders currently presented at Real Fine Arts in Brooklyn features a completely new body of work mainly composed of moments and objects including branches, walls, shadows as well as three large fluffy creatures which seem to have been stopped or frozen in their action.

According to the press release ‘All of these elements could appear as central but then the next moment they balance each other with differing weights, entering into a complex and literary narrative about notions of hypocrisy. (…) Following his extensive earlier practice in collaboration as an artist, composer, and performer, STEFAN TCHEREPNIN continues to transform these experiences, conceding that all artistic work is based on collaborations but often concealed in hypocrisy. According to psychology, the hypocrite is one who has no awareness of his shadow self, of his dark side’.

Be sure to catch the show in person at Real Fine Arts in Brooklyn before it closes on December 7, 2014!

–

–

–

Today I spent almost one hour chatting with PHIL about life, insecurity, human being and love affairs. A very nice chat but utterly strange since PHIL is a spam bot, an automated computer program which takes the form of the late PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN. PHIL has been created by Belgian-American artist CECILE B. EVANS for the second edition of the Post Digital Cultures Symposium which is going to take place this weekend in Lausanne.

In our conversation this afternoon, PHIL talked about his friend AGNES, also a spam bot created by EVANS in 2013 and who lives on the Serpentine Galleries website. To know more about how spam bots are feeling, I highly recommend to read this conversation AGNES had with HANS ULRICH OBRIST earlier this year via art papers.

If you are interested you can also talk to PHIL in real time from December 1st until the 7th via the Post Digital Culture website. Or simply come to the symposium in Lausanne from Friday, December 5 2014 to Saturday, December 6, see you there!

–

–

exhibition view at Wentrup Gallery, Berlin / November 2014

image courtesy of the artist and Wentrup Gallery, Berlin

–

This a view from the exhibition DUO, a solo exhibition by PELES EMPIRE that opened a few days ago at Wentrup Gallery in Berlin. PELES EMPIRE is KATHARINA STOEVER (1982) and BARBARA WOLFF (1980), two girls respectively from Germany and Romania who started to collaborate in 2005. Their name as well as the source of their artistic practice comes from a Romanian castle sited at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains called Peles. Built between 1873 and 1913, the castle’s architecture is a clash of historical styles ranging from Renaissance to Gothic Revival, Art Deco to Rococo.

According to the press release by Wentrup Gallery, their photographic appropriations of this “edifice of copies” and their subsequent ongoing spatial interpretations of the source material constitute a central point of departure for their works. An important strategy used by PELES EMPIRE is copying the copy; inherent as well is the process of translating something spatial into two-dimensionality, which ultimately again manifests itself in three-dimensional objects.

➝ DUO is on view at Wentrup Gallery in Berlin until January 17, 2015

–

–

still from C⁴I [screening version] (2004-06) by RYOJI IKEDA
seen at Haus der elektronischen Künste, Basel
on Friday, November 21, 2014
image © wfw

–

RYOJI IKEDA solo exhibition at HeK is on view until March 29, 2015

–

–

I will call you later (2014) by GINA FOLLY
as part of the group exhibition Approaching
seen at the Kunsthaus Baselland Satellit, Basel
on Sunday, November 30, 2014
image © wfw

–

BRYAN SCHUTMAAT, PASCUAL SISTO, BRIAN KHEK

–

BRIAN KHEK, Sam 2a, Sam 2b, Sam 2c, 2014
acrylic on newspaper

–

BRIAN KHEK, AMY YAO

–

AMY YAO,  Jouissance, PCH: Milan; 2014
fiberglass, synthetic rice paper, crayon, polyester resin

–

AMY YAO, Italian Tickler

–

PASCUAL SISTO, Obstructed Views, 2008
digital prints on postcards

–

PASCUAL SISTO, Obstructed Views (Eiffel Tower), 2008
digital print on postcard

–

PASCUAL SISTO, Obstructed Views (Notre Dame), 2008
digital print on postcard

–

JENNIFER TEETS, Buffalo Mozzarella

–

BRIAN KHEK, Sam 1a, Sam 1b, 2014
acrylic on newspaper

–

BRIAN KHEK

–

BRYAN SCHUTMAAT, Paul, 2010, photograph

–

BRIAN KHEK, Kalimotxo

–

JENNIFER TEETS ft. NICHOLAS HATFULL, BRYAN SCHUTMAAT

all images courtesy Taylor Macklin

–

Un pour la route was a witty group show organized by American artist ADAM CRUCES as part of the artist-run space Taylor Macklin that he founded with GINA FOLLY, and THOMAS JULIER this spring. The exhibition which gathered works, drinks and foods by BRIAN KHEK, PASCUAL SISTO, BRYAN SCHUTMAAT, JENNIFER TEETS featuring NICHOLAS HATFULL, and AMY YAO took place in CRUCES‘ apartment in Paris earlier this month.

Contrary to the collective beliefs, the aperitif obeys a meticulous master plan, a series of conventions that strictly delimits the contour of this pre-dinner ritual. Too much alcohol makes you forget that you have to eat. A lack of it frustrates the participants. It is also a time of deceleration that reverses the principles of the high-speed train: fast immobility. As such it somehow acts as a testing ground for discourses and positions. The antiquity privileged the symposium in which wine acted as a catalyst to address issues that gathered philosophers, historians, and mathematicians. But now it is the ambiguities that pertain this tradition toward the post-industrial economy that makes it relevant: working outside the domain of productivity, the aperitif is nonetheless one of the most effective social laboratories. – CHARLES TEYSSOU, November 2014

→ http://taylormacklin.com/

–

© AP CHARLIE RIEDEL

–

This is an image taken by American photographer CHARLIE RIEDEL in Ferguson, Missouri after the protests over the decision not to indict a police officer in MICHAEL BROWN‘s death turn violent. This shot not only provides a political and social perspective of Ferguson right now, but I think that the story this picture tells in aggregate is universal.

–

via

–

two other views of the exhibition here and here

–

a glimpse into Animal Que No Existeix, a solo exhibition by DANIEL STEEGMANN MANGRANE
presented at Crac Alsace, Altkirch
seen on Wednesday, November 19, 2014
image © wfw

–

more about this exhibition next week on wfw

–