 Eric Hattan Liquid Concrete with Zoe Leonard, Michel François and Eddie Chu "Every day I am astonished anew by the straightforward way cats change direction and by how life continues on its way while producing the most vivid images at the same time. On walks through the city, a small video camera is an ideal notebook." - Eric Hattan Liquid Concrete features Swiss artist Eric Hattan in the main space, with New York based photographer, Zoe Leonard in the lounge and Belgian artist Michel François in the library. An antidote for the over-saturated eye, Eric Hattan's videos from his work "Beton Liquide", or, "Liquid Concrete", are his selection of what you might see walking in a city. On eighteen monitors Hattan reveals his camera's spontaneous observances. The placement of the monitors recreates a sort of city, and walking around the gallery you catch a glimpse of what is going on in this or that corner, but you might miss what is just around the corner. Short, quiet incidents are caught on film and looped, very much like the blowing plastic bag of American Beauty, but without the dramatization, without the artist's addition of music, melancholy or nostalgia. The works are like video ready-mades, the camera records minor occurrences: a curtain blowing, a basketball thrown through a hoop, water pouring out of a drain pipe, the changing light, cast on a billboard on the side of a building. The minor occurrence is given a moment's importance, as with Zoe Leonard's photographs, which depict the urban mystery of plastic bags, caught and blowing on the branches of trees. Michel François' project, "Action/La Plante En Nous" is comprised of a series of spontaneous actions, or as he calls them, "120 moments of irony and beauty". Taking the incidental as subject matter, their works introduce a new preoccupation at the SI: looking at what happens in the time and space "between", so that this exhibition is portrayed as a sort of intermission. This theme of intermission or entr'acte will recur unexpectedly in the SI's programming this year, challenging the accepted notion of an exhibition having defined beginning and end points. The repetition and incidental beauty of the works in liquid concrete will serve as a kind of trailer, introducing the idea that exhibitions do not begin or end, but rather flow and linger. This exhibition has been made possible by the kind support of the Consulate General of Switzerland, New York. Special thanks to Paula Cooper Gallery and Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY. Ausstellungsdauer: 14.1 - 15.2.2003 The gallery is open between the hours of 11 am and 6 pm, Tuesday through Saturday, when there is a current exhibition. Swiss Institute Contemporary Art 495 Broadway, 3rd Floor USA-New York NY 10012 Telefon +212 925 20 35 Fax +212 925 20 40 E-Mail info@swissinstitute.net www.swissinstitute.net |
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