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UN SOIR, J'AI ASSIS LA BEAUTÉ SUR MES GENOUX. AND I FOUND HER BITTER AND I HURT HER. Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers London, 8 October - 10 November 2007 Having realized several exhibition projects together in the past, the two artists seek each time to address concerns about the processes of artistic creation, questioning the freedoms and limitations it entails. Drawing the title of the exhibition from Arthur Rimbaud's poem 'La Saison en Enfer' the artists equally challenge and subvert our expectations of art - what we think it should provide and the promise of beauty we often expect it to entail. Playing with the scale and vitrine like qualities of the front gallery the first installation is constructed so that the virtually monochrome canvases appear to be floating on water, their surfaces reflected against the black painted walls of the gallery. The elements of the construction overwhelm and simultaneously dissolve into the background so the whole work itself almost eludes the viewer. In the rear space suspended neon tubes and chords form a framework for the second installation. Central to this are three urns containing some of the ashes of sculptures which the artists had jointly created and then destroyed by fire in a specific location along the banks of the Rhine. Photographs and an accompanying film document this process. The original sculptures, human like in form, had been given certain 'attributes' such as those of 'the poet' or 'the artist', represented by heavy geometric structures that always threatened to overburden them. Having found an idyllic parcel of land overlooking the city of Kassel, a city rich with German art historical significance, the artists proceeded to bury these ashes, some of which are contained by the urns in the gallery. In a gesture of ritualistic destruction and transformation the sculptures are returned to the earth to a point where they will break down no more. In a distinguished career which is deeply rooted in the Cologne art scene from the early 1980's onwards , Rosemarie Trockel has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, amongst which the Moderne Museet, Stockholm; the Dia Center for the Arts, New York; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. In 2004 she received the prestigious Wolfgang-Hahn-Preis which led to the solo exhibition `Post-Menopause` at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and the Museo Nazionale Delle Arti Del XXI Secolo in Rome. Trockel represented Germany in the 1999 Venice Biennale. Born in Georgia, Thea Djordjadze now lives and works in Cologne. She studied under Rosemarie Trockel at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and was a founder member of the art collective hobbypopMUSEUM. With a practice encompassing performance, painting, drawing, sculpture and installation, her work was most recently seen in London at Studio Voltaire. Previous collaborations between the two artists have taken place at the Venice Biennial 2003, the Neue Kunst Halle St Gallen 2006 and the Lyon Biennial 2007. Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers [official site]
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