Low Affinity

Johanna Strobel

14.10 – 14.11.2021

GiG Munich is happy to present the next instalment of the series Thinking Nature, featuring new work by Johanna Strobel. For her solo exhibiton low affinity, Johanna Strobel creates rhizomatic macramé-like structures from USB extension cords, using them to power her plexiglas and paraffin sculptures.

Enthropy, the fact that once the USB 2.0 cable exceeds a certain length information gets lost while power still remains, forms the central component of this work. It ties together the ancient idea of ‘ether’ as a medium through which light travels, the fluid physics of translucency, and the decorative and practical craft of knot-making. Her practice is informed by her background in science, and explores such unwieldy concepts like time and space, information and entropy, language, the creation, attribution or suspension of meaning and the everyday perception and precipitation of these concepts in mundane life.

Johanna Strobel is an interdisciplinary artist from Germany, currently based in New York. She holds degrees in Information Science and Mathematics and graduated in painting and graphics from the Academy of Fine Arts Munich with Honors (Meisterschuelerin of Gregor Hildebrandt) in 2017. In 2020 she received her MFA from Hunter College New York (New Genres). Since then she has participated in numerous exhibitions in Germany, Italy, Taiwan and the US, with a solo exhibition at the Municipal Museum Cordonhaus Cham, 2019. In 2020 her work has been included in The Immigrant Artist Biennial, New York, USA, Jahresgaben, Kunstverein Munich, Germany and featured online by Hauser & Wirth. Johanna was a fellowship artist in residence at NARS Foundation, Brooklyn in 2021.

The exhibition will include an online discussion event with Dr. Beth Lord, Professor of Philosophy, School of Divinity, History, Philosophy and Art History at the University of Aberdeen.

BILDHAUER*IN DER SINNE

Emanuele Becheri, Beth Collar

26.09. – 4.12.2020

Opening: 26.09.2020, 7 – 9 pm GiG Munich is delighted to be presenting the duo show “Bildhauer*in der Sinne,” opening on Saturday, September 26, 2020. As the title suggests, the exhibition focuses on the sculptural practices by international artists Beth Collar (UK) and Emanuele Becheri (IT). Guest curator Beniamino Foschini presents the two artists together for the first time.

While Collar and Becheri work with different mediums (drawing, performance, video), the idea of this exhibition and the juxtaposition between the two artists comes from an inquiry into a specific aspect of their practice: what we can commonly define as “figurative sculpture,” which they deal with through their critical and ironic visions of contemporary culture and its mannerisms.In the process of conceiving this exhibition, a quote from Pietro Aretino, a legendary poet, critic and intellectual of the 16th century, came into view:

[a poet should be] a sculptor of senses and not a miniaturist of words

This criticism of 16th century Mannerist poetry offers a particular stimulus for a metaphorical interpretation of the exhibition “Bidlhauer*in der Sinne” : what happens when a sculptor, and not a poet, is indeed a sculptor of senses?

Beth Collar (*1984) is a British artist based in Berlin, working predominantly in performance and sculpture. Her solo shows include ‘Daddy Issues’ at Dilston Grove commissioned by Matt’s Gallery and Southwark Park Galleries and ‘Retrogression’ a collaborative exhibition with Eoghan Ryan at 427 in Riga, Latvia both 2019; Waldo @Mathew Gallery, New York, Matt’s Gallery, London, Primary, Nottingham all in 2018; at Standpoint, London in 2017 and at Fig2 at the ICA in London 2015. Her recent group exhibitions have been at Regatta 2, Düsseldorf, Litost, Prague, 2020; A PLUS A, Venice, The Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, Kunsthal ved siden af, Svendborg, Denmark, Marlborough Contemporary, New York, Bärenzwinger, Berlin, 2019; Cell Project Space, London, 2018; Kunstverein München, 2017; and KW, Berlin, 2016. Performances have taken place at Camden Arts Centre, London and Kunstverein Bamberg, 2020; Bob Shop, Berlin, 2019.

Emanuele Becheri (*1973) is an Italian artist, whose practice incorporates sculpture, drawing and video. His most recent solo shows include ’Sculture e disegni’ at Museo del 900, Firenze, curated by Sergio Risaliti and Saretto Cincinelli in 2020, ‘Stati d’Animo’ at the FuoriCampo Gallery and Santa Maria della Scala, Siena in 2019. Group exhibitions include ‘Ragione e Sentimento’ at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Roma, curated by Chiara Stefani and Massimo Mininni in 2019, ‘Il disegno del disegno’ at the Museo del 900, Firenze, curated by Saretto Cincinelli, ‘Video from the Collection of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte e Moderna e Contemporanea’ at the EMST National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, and ‘De scultura’ at Casa Masaccio Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea, San Giovanni Valdarno, all in 2018.

Beniamino Foschini is a doctoral candidate at the Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Ludwig-Maximilans-Universität München, and a research associate at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München.

Beniamino Foschini 2020

https://s3.amazonaws.com/flashissue/FwFHH7GMRLaQbY4wLzYg_5Udg3mkQyyhhQtxnezgy_cHJvamVjdF9mdW5kZWQucG5n

5 Years

Tim Bennett, Jenny Dunseath, Jonah Gebka, Andrea Hanak, Jane Hayes-Greenwood, Hannes Heinrich, Melina Hennicker, David Henrichs, Stefanie Hofer, Lukas Hoffmann, Lou Jaworski, Steffen Kern, Stefan Lenhart, Jo Love, Michael Lukas, Robin Mason, Kathrin Partelli, Rebecca Partridge, Plastique Fantastique, Berthold Reiss, Miriam Salamander, Michael Schmidt, Maria Thurn und Taxis, Stefanie Ullmann, Maria VMier, Susanne Wagner, Youjin Yi, Andrea Zabric, Janka Zöller.

23.07 – 19.09.2020

Image: Hannes Heinrich

elements

Lukas Hoffmann, Andrea Zabric

16.12.2018 – 11.01.2019

elements, 2018, installation view

Andrea Zabric, Pigment sculptures (Berlin red and Naples Yellow) 2018, pigment, dimensions variable

Andrea Zabric, Pigment sculpture (Berlin red) 2018, pigment, dimensions variable

Andrea Zabric, Pigment sculptures (Naples yellow, 43870,) 2018, pigment, 12 x 10 x 10 cm

elements, 2018, installation view

Lukas Hoffmann, o. T., 2018, Series of 4, each in edition of 10, Stainless steel, dimensions variable

Lukas Hoffmann, o. T. and o. T, 2018, stainless steel, various textiles, pvc, plastic fittings, steel, aluminium bronze, German silver, 150 x 3 x 3 cm and 50 x 15 x 3 cm

Lukas Hoffman, o. T., 2018, various textiles, pvc, plastic fittings, steel, aluminium bronze, german silver, 150 x 3 x 3 cm

Lukas Hoffmann in elements, 2018, installation view

Lukas Hoffmann, o. T., 2018, bronze, 15 x 4 x 4 cm each

Lukas Hoffmann, o. T., 2018, series of 5, stainless steel, 9 x 1 cm each

Lukas Hoffmann, o. T. and o. T., 2018, stainless steel and various textiles, pvc, 9 x 1 cm each and 65 x 35 x 8 cm

Lukas Hoffmann, o. T., 2018, various textiles, pvc, 65 x 35 x 8 cm

The show elements, featuring new work by Lukas Hoffmann and Andrea Zabric, is GiG Munich’s first collaboration with Klasse Pia Fries, Akademie der bildene Kunst, München. Klasse Pia Fries is well known for its focus on abstract painting, especially in its material aspect. Both Andrea Zabric, a recent graduate (2018), and Lukas Hoffmann, a student at the class, incorporate material elements in their practice, but in a strongly conceptual rather than a painterly fashion.

Carbon, aluminium, iron, copper – basic chemical elements are at play in the work, often in their purest form. These instead of being manipulated by the artist’s hand are left in their natural alien state. Matter is subject to its own internal logic not the artist’s touch, and the method of production incorporates industrial, mechanical, and printing processes. While this is obviously human in origin, technology as much a product of man as any painting, when combined with the emphasis on materiality, lends their investigations a scientific rather than artistic quality. As an attempt to think the world outside of the personal relationship we have with it, the work relates to speculative realist concerns currently present in art and philosophy. It shares with speculative realism a taste for the dogmatic, the formal and the mathematical.

Zabric’s signature pigment sculptures, quite literally, take centre stage. Painting becomes reduced to its primary components: space, ground and pigment. The pigment is not mixed with medium and spread across the ground in its customary way, but is compressed at high pressure to form unusually perfect cuboid shapes. This gives her colours an uncanny density, a new found depth that recalls the violence of its making. For GiG Munich Zabric has produced three new pieces in pigments she had not used before. The work is also more experimental than previously, in that she allows the pieces to crumble, thus exposing their innate vulnerability.

For all its implications of aggression, Hoffmann’s work is curiously invisible, scattered around the room, sometimes disguised as items of furniture. Instead of paintings, we encounter clothes hooks, a javelin is placed against the wall ready for use. Bullets (or are they exercise bars? maybe dildos?) lie waiting on the floor. The casual method of display serves to highlight the works tactile qualities, drawing us in. In a moment of masochism, we want to touch the sharp points with our fingertip and wait for the skin to break. Yet simultaneously we feel that to do so would be an imposition, we would enter a space that its not for us, that belongs to someone else, or indeed to the work itself. Quietly, the work turns away from us and withdraws into its own realm.

Magdalena Wisniowska 2018

elements

Lukas Hoffmann, Andrea Zabric

26.11.2018 – 18.01.2019

fullsizeoutput_76e

Vernissage: Freitag 16. November, 18 – 21 Uhr,
16 November 2018 – 18 Januar 2019
Bitte nach Vereinbarung unter contact@gig-munich.com
Finissage: Freitag 18. Januar 2019, 19 – 21 Uhr

The exhibition elements, showcasing new work by Lukas Hoffmann and Andrea Zabric is GiG Munich’s first collaboration with Klasse Pia Fries, Akademie der Bildenden Künste München.

What connects the two young, upcoming artists is a shared interest in materialism, where their version of materialism belongs more to the philosophical developments centred around Speculative Realism than to the handmade, expressive variety traditionally associated with the activity of painting. Operating at the intersection of materialism and realism, they submit to the view that the primacy afforded to matter necessarily demotes the importance of the human understanding of it. If matter is all there is, then its reality must be encountered for itself. In their quasi-scientific, quasi-magical approaches, they reject the emphasis on the multiplicity of interpretations that art borrowed from dominant modes of contemporary critical theory (post-structuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalysis) in order to pursue an almost essential, almost dogmatic, grounding of reality. With this comes a violence, whether this is manifested in the high pressure Zabric submits her pigments to, or the highly polished weapon-like quality of Hoffmann’s metal work. They show that the material world, the inhuman one, is intense, forceful, elemental.

Magdalena Wisniowska 2018