David Ostrowski, Michail Pirgelis. Nothing Happened

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installation view, DAVID OSTROWSKI, MICHAIL PIRGELIS, Nothing Happened, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, November 15 – Dezember 23, 2016
photograpy by: ROBERT WEDEMEYER, edited by: HANS-GEORG GAUL

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Honey Depression, 2016
aluminium, fibreglass, tape 277 x 352 x 16 cm
© MICHAIL PIRGELIS
Courtesy Sprüth Magers

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installation view, DAVID OSTROWSKI, MICHAIL PIRGELIS, Nothing Happened, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, November 15 – Dezember 23, 2016
photograpy by: ROBERT WEDEMEYER, edited by: HANS-GEORG GAUL

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installation view, DAVID OSTROWSKI, MICHAIL PIRGELIS, Nothing Happened, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, November 15 – Dezember 23, 2016
photograpy by: ROBERT WEDEMEYER, edited by: HANS-GEORG GAUL

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F (A thing is a thing in a whole which it’s not), 2015
lacquer and paper on canvas, 100 x 80 cm
© DAVID OSTROWSKI
Courtesy Sprüth Magers

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installation view, DAVID OSTROWSKI, MICHAIL PIRGELIS, Nothing Happened, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, November 15 – Dezember 23, 2016
photograpy by: ROBERT WEDEMEYER, edited by: HANS-GEORG GAUL

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installation view, DAVID OSTROWSKI, MICHAIL PIRGELIS, Nothing Happened, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles, November 15 – Dezember 23, 2016
photograpy by: ROBERT WEDEMEYER, edited by: HANS-GEORG GAUL

all images courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers

Everytime I see the work of DAVID OSTROWSKI, I can’t help but to remember an article about him explaining that he spends 80 percent of his time at his studio overlooking the Rhine River and not painting. True or false, it was liberating.

MICHAIL PIRGELIS is actually a close friend to OSTROWSKI. They met at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf where they were both studying. In the vein of contemporary sculptors, PIRGELIS‘s work is following the traditions of the readymade and of Minimalism by stripping objects from their original purpose thanks to an economy of interventions.

An economy that DAVID OSTROWSKI has in common. The german painter is best known for his  large-scale, monochrome works that often only betray a hint of spray paint or/and marks of his studio.

These both minimal gestures are actually presented in an exhibition entitled Nothing Happened. According to the press release, ‘the title of this exhibition, could also be read from a different angle: not in the sense that nothing has happened, but in the sense that the “nothing” happened here, that what happened is the “nothing”‘.

Lets put it that way: their work in their own right does not cover, ignore, or defer nothingness, meaningless and lack of understanding. But rather PIRGELIS‘s sculptures and OSTROWSKI‘s paintings made of timeless traces embrace, submit and activate the absence itself.

 

Nothing Happened by DAVID OSTROWSKI and MICHAIL PIRGELIS is on view at Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles until December 23, 2016.



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