CRUISING
Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Michele Di Menna, Sylvie Fleury
Arthur Fouray, Bruno Jakob, Peter Püntener, Prem Sahib
Curated by Elise Lammer
11 Sep – 22 Oct 2016
Opening: Saturday 10 September 2016, 5-8pm
An exhibition exploring the figure of the Wanderer (digital, social, political &
sexual).
Breath, time suspended, forever interrupted (Weisses Lächeln) (2011) is part of Burno Jakob’s ongoing series of “Invisible Paintings.” Assuming that pictures don’t need to be visible in order to be real, Jakob has developed a body of work that radically questions our cultural faith in visual evidence. However, Jakob works in a very traditional way, using paintbrushes, different waters, and steam to draw on canvases, paper, and walls. The artworks remain empty to our eyes only because Jakob uses energy, brainwaves, natural forces or love instead of pigments.
Bruno Jakob
Breath, time suspended, forever interrupted (Weisses Lächeln), 2011
Unique installation of invisible paintings, 1 canvas suspended from ceiling, brainwaves, morning dew, and various technics unknown on (greenish) painted canvas in plastic, 1 roll of canvas with 2 drawings, ball point pen on paper, plastic, cardboard
Painting 160 x 160 cm, canvas roll 210 x 15 cm
Courtesy of Peter Kilchmann, Zurich
Bruno Jakob was born in 1954 in Jegenstorf, and lives since 1983 in New York. His work has been widely exhibited in instituions nationally and internationally. In 2011 he was invited to participate to the 54th Venice Biennial, where he exhibited two installations at the Arsenale and in the Main Pavilion. Jakob is currently showing a retrospective of his work at Kunsthaus Baselland in Muttenz.
In 2008 Peter Püntener started photographing famous Swiss citizens living in the USA, including Bruno Jakob, who lives in New York City. This series of work is now part of the Photography Collection of the Swiss National Library. In The Quest for the Invisible (2004), we see Jakob exposing a canvas to the mist of the sea in Rockaway Beach, New York. Püntener was nominated for the Swiss Photo Award 2014 with this work.
Peter Püntener
The Quest for the Invisible - Bruno Jakob at Work, Rockaway Beach, Queens, New York, 2004/2013
Silver gelatin print
11 x 27.5 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Peter Püntener was born in Switzerland in 1958 and currently lives in Paris and Zurich. After finishing his studies in Economic History at the University of Zurich in the early 1990s, Püntener attended the International Center of Photography in New York City. He then returned to Switzerland, where he began a career as photo-journalist. He is currently working on a project about the financial crisis in Europe.
Arthur Fouray’s L’Epoque et son style (2015) is a small-scale box assembled with a printed paper bottom and a lid hand-painted with an aquarelle. The back and side of the work feature a regular pattern made with the repetition of the words “L’EPOQUE EST SON STYLE,” the title of a book by curator and writer Peter Thornton from 1984. The lid of the box is decorated with a delicate painting of Cinderella Castle, which also inspired the Walt Disney Pictures logo. Additionally, the box contains a mysterious note left by the artist on his own business card: “DE RETOUR LE 19.11.2015.”
Arthur Fouray
L’Époque et son style, 2015
Gouache, Arches paper, cardboard
26.5 x 26 x 4 cm
Courtesy of the artist
Arthur Fouray is a French artist born in 1990. His practice often analyses through paintings the exhibition format. After his first solo show, Spectre at Espace Quark, Geneva (2015), his work was presented in a solo exhibition at la Placette, Lausanne (2015). He was nominated for the Kiefer Hablitzel Award in 2016 and published M, an artist’s book at éditions Micronaut.
Sylvie Fleury’s Cristal Custom Commando (2008) shows a gang of women bikers using Chanel handbags as targets. Originally commissioned by the brand Chanel in order to increase its sales in China, it’s said that 22 bags were destroyed while shooting the film.
Sylvie Fleury
Cristal Custom Commando, 2008
Video (loop) | Sylvie Fleury for Chanel Mobile Art, 2008
Courtesy of the artist
Sylvie Fleury was born in 1961, she currently lives and works in Geneva. She is known for her mises-en-scène of glamour, fashion and luxury products. Recent exhibitions include My Life On The Road, Villa Stuck Munich, Munich, Germany (2016); Your Dress Is More Beautiful, Karma International, Los Angeles (2016); Spaced Out: Migration to the Interior, Red Bull Studios New York, New
York(2014); It Might As Well Rain Until September, Salon 94 Bowery, New York (2013); CAC Málaga, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga, Spain (2011).
Michele di Menna’s Blushing Butts (1,2,3,4) (2016) are four casts of the artist’s own bodyparts. Temporarily installed in the space, the work will later be moved during a performance to the nearby River Birs, where it will be floating until the end of the exhibition. A reference to the persecution of witches in South Germany and Western Europe, the floating limbs refer to a Medieval ritual during which women suspected of witchcraft were thrown into rivers in order to test their magic powers.
Michele di Menna
Blushing Butts (1,2,3,4), 2016
Acrylic, acrylic paint, fiberglass
63 x 46 x 26 cm (each)
Courtesy of the artist
Michele Di Menna was born in Vancouver, Canada and lives and works in Berlin. Recent exhibitions include Ein Schelm, wer Böses dabei denkt, Kuenstlerhaus Bremen, Bremen (2016); A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it, Liszt, Berlin (2015); Utopie beginnt im Kleinen/Utopia starts small, Triennale Kleinplastik, Fellbach (2013); Soundworks at ICA, London (2012).
In History Makes a Young Man Old (2008-2010) duo Nina Beier and Marie Lund direct the curator to roll a crystal ball from wherever it is purchased in the city of the exhibition venue—here a magic shop located right across SALTS in Birsfelden—to the exhibition site itself, thus rapidly rendering the transparent device opaque and ineffective.
Nina Beier and Marie Lund
History Makes a Young Man Old, 2008/2010
Crystal ball, carpet
Dimension variable
Courtesy of Laura Bartlett, London and Carlier Gebauer, Berlin
Based in London and Berlin, artists Nina Beier (born in 1975 in Denmark) and Marie Lund (born in 1976 in Denmark) have been producing work collaboratively since 2004, while also pursuing their own individual practices. Recent duo exhibitions include Le Musée d’une Nuit (script for levain traces), curated by Vincent Honoré, DRAF, Fondation Hippocrène, Paris (2014); Nouveau Festival, curated by Bernard Blistene, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014); Encyclopedia of Failure, curated by Zbynek Baladran and Vit Havranek, Jakarta Biennial, Indonesia (2013); Beyond Words, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, GAK Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Germany (2012).
Prem Sahib’s most recent work deals with gay underground practice and particularly
“cottaging” or “cruising,” both terms referring to searching, often anonymously, for a sexual encounter in public places. Consisting of two arches covered with two types of black industrial tiles, Called Out II (2016) invites the audience to interact, while its highly reflective surface allows to see who or what is behind.
Prem Sahib
Called Out II, 2016
Wood, ceramic tiles, grout
225 x 135 x 30 cm (each)
Courtesy of Southard Reid, London
Born in London in 1982, Prem Sahib lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Grand Union, Grand Union, Birmingham (2016); Side On, ICA, London and END UP, Southard Reid, London (2015); performance and presentation of work made in Stromboli as part of Forget Amnesia curated by Milovan Farronato and Haroon Mirza, Fiorucci Trust, Italy (2015); Back Chat, Lorcan O’Neill Gallery, Rome, (2013); He Looked Me Up, Marian Cramer Projects, Amsterdam (2012).
We would like to thank Pro Helvetia, Fondation Nestlé pour l'art, Roldenfund and kulturelles.bl/Swisslos for their generous support.