 Heimir Björgúlfsson: Parallel Tale of Great Altitudes, 2008 Acrylic, spraypaint and marker on canvas, 152 x 152 cm, 60 x 60 in. SIX FROM LA Heimir Björgúlfsson, Tam van Tran, Reed Danziger, Andy Moses, Wayne White, Sarah Cain Seiler + Mosseri-Marlio Galerie is proud to present for the first time in Switzerland artists Heimir Björgúlfsson, Sarah Cain, Reed Danziger, Andy Moses, Tam Van Tran and Wayne White. The myth of Arcadian California is a set piece in our shared knowledge and as such it has helped generate some very special artistic movements - be it in painting or, say, music. There have been various "Births of the Cool", one of them being the 1960's and 70's West Coast movements of "Light and Space" and "Finish Fetish". The works in the present exhibition show vestiges of those, yet they defy generalisation each in its own way. They do, however, draw on a set of related ideas: Light, nature, space and epistemological questions about how we see and how we make sense of what we see are among these. Heimir Björgúlfsson confronts the viewer with tricky vistas of parallel perspective: In the work on show, "Parallel Tales of Great Altitude", we look from a bird's-eye perspective into a vortex of graffity, only to find - irritatingly sitting at the picture's center - a bird. This leads to questions about authority and agency in the picture. Sarah Caine, too, reflects on perception, perspective and, ultimately, nature. By putting feathers, foils and other materials in her creations, preferably around the edges, she seems to challenge the limitations of the canvas. Her on-site installations, as in the present show, allow her to take this gesture even further, the installation being the ideal medium to reveal our notions about form as preconceived and merely learned. Reed Danziger's visual vocabulary consists of patterns and ornaments, which are set against wildly spiralling curves and lines. For the viewer the richness of her forms and their element of repetition, the latter point being forcefully made by the form of the diptych, lead to questions about the nature of chaos or, rather, organized chaos. Andy Moses' concave canvases literally reach out to their viewer: Their curved shape not only enhances the effect of the special light-reflective pigments he uses, but gives the viewer a feeling of being embraced into the painting's universe. In that sense Andy Moses is truly a "landscape painter". These abstracted versions of sea- and landscapes impress with their sleek perfection and masterly control of their acrylic medium. Tam Van Tran takes the term "mixed media" a bit further than most. In addition to acrylic paint he uses chlorophyll, spirulina (a kind of algae) as well as found objects. In the work on show these are mushrooms. He subjects these natural elements, however, to an elaborate process - "culture", as it were: Tran puts large, often green paintings on paper. Next, he cuts them up in strips and punches holes in them. The strips then are stapled back together and mounted on paper, twisting and turning them into three-dimensional objects. Wayne White's linguistic interventions which he paints over bought lithographs of rural landscapes strike the viewer on first sight with their often drastic contents. Yet, on second glance we might also consider them an artistic guerilla tactics designed to shake us up and out of our accustomed perceptual habits. In White's monoprints the letters take over altogether: They take on a life of their own, become somewhat sculptural and make up their own world. Sarah Cain, still in her twenties, Heimir Björgúlfsson in his thirties, Reed Danziger, Andy Moses, Tam Van Tran, all in their forties, and Wayne White, fifty, have all shown in various group and solo exhibitions. Exhibition 25 April - 24 May 2008 Gallery hours Tues-Fri noon - 6 pm, Sat 11 am - 4 pm Seiler + Mosseri-Marlio Galerie Bleicherweg 33 CH-8002 Zurich Telephone +41 43 243 03 80 Fax +41 43 243 03 81 Email mail@semoma.com www.semoma.com |
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