Galerie Sfeir-Semler
Adresse:
Admiralitätstraße 71
29459
Hamburg
Telefon:
+49 - 40 - 37 51 99 40
Telefax:
+49 - 40 - 37 51 96 37
Öffnungszeiten:
Di-Fr 11-18 h, Sa 12-15 h
RICHARD NONAS / ROBERT BARRY
Recent works
28.05.2010
-
28.08.2010
RICHARD NONAS In situ Installation & Sculptures
“”Art is a way of making the word bigger…Ambiguity is what interests me . And immediacy..tension is what I want…I grab what I grab; remember what I remember: skew it and use it. And forget the rest. Or try to.” – Nonas, 1998/2010
For over 40 years, the Antropologist Richard Nonas has been creating intensely physical and immediately emotional works by carving, joining, stacking, arranging, re-working and even painting his essential materials of wood and metal. Describing the origins of his art practice, he writes: “I saw that simple objects, physical things and places – an ax, a mountain, a box, pieces of wood roughly stacked – could convey complex human emotion in an unmediated, undivided and instantaneous way.”
For his first show with Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Nonas has installed two Insitu Sculptures in two spaces of the gallery : one in Steel , the other in Wood. The artist has grouped around these simple strongly minimal pieces, on the wall, small stacks of wood or of steel forming profoundly captivating elementary geometries, with painted surfaces peaking out from within these piles of raw materials. Out of layers and pieces, Nonas creates new wholes, new forms that reveal the artist’s deeply felt investigation into volume, weight, material, surface and the interaction, unity and poetic implications of these elements.
Based in New York, Richard Nonas (born 1936, New York) has exhibited internationally since the 1970s – many of You might remember his Installation in the Gardens of the Documenta 1976- with exhibitions across the US, Europe and Asia, including one-person shows at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Socrates Sculpture Park in New York, MAMCO in Geneva, and major art galleries from New York to Tokyo. From May 15 – August 22, 2010, Nonas will have a one-person exhibition at the Musée d’art moderne de Saint-Étienne Métropole called “Shoots Good, Not Straight”. For more information, please visit www.mam-st-etienne.fr.
ROBERT BARRY Recent Work
A major protagonist and pioneer of Conceptual Art, Robert Barry has been making language-based artwork since the sixties. By arranging words in lists, circles, or scattered compositions on paper, canvases, mirrors, videos, walls, windows, floors and buildings, Barry’s work has explored meaning and its various modes of communication and display. By selecting a potent set of single words, the artist provides viewers with suggestions and possibilities for the relationships between words themselves, between words and images (and words as images), and between words and viewers.
For this show of new work, Barry will present one list of words directly on the wall in silver mirrored text. A second list of words will continue from the wall onto the floor with words in various colors. Every other word in these lists is flipped upside-down, creating a kind of double-direction of meaning in which words address each other and the viewer from oscillating perspectives. Large works on canvas and on paper show words against a grey background, continuing Barry’s investigation into the rich, wordless possibilities of color paired with direct but various significations of language.
With solo shows in major venues around the world, Robert Barry has established himself as one of the foremost artists in the continuing history of Conceptual Art. His work has been included in many major public and museum shows and collections such as documenta 5,6,7, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, PS1 in New York, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland, Moma New York and Los Angeles and many others. Born in New York in 1936, he lives and works in Teaneck, New Jersey.
“”Art is a way of making the word bigger…Ambiguity is what interests me . And immediacy..tension is what I want…I grab what I grab; remember what I remember: skew it and use it. And forget the rest. Or try to.” – Nonas, 1998/2010
For over 40 years, the Antropologist Richard Nonas has been creating intensely physical and immediately emotional works by carving, joining, stacking, arranging, re-working and even painting his essential materials of wood and metal. Describing the origins of his art practice, he writes: “I saw that simple objects, physical things and places – an ax, a mountain, a box, pieces of wood roughly stacked – could convey complex human emotion in an unmediated, undivided and instantaneous way.”
For his first show with Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Nonas has installed two Insitu Sculptures in two spaces of the gallery : one in Steel , the other in Wood. The artist has grouped around these simple strongly minimal pieces, on the wall, small stacks of wood or of steel forming profoundly captivating elementary geometries, with painted surfaces peaking out from within these piles of raw materials. Out of layers and pieces, Nonas creates new wholes, new forms that reveal the artist’s deeply felt investigation into volume, weight, material, surface and the interaction, unity and poetic implications of these elements.
Based in New York, Richard Nonas (born 1936, New York) has exhibited internationally since the 1970s – many of You might remember his Installation in the Gardens of the Documenta 1976- with exhibitions across the US, Europe and Asia, including one-person shows at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Socrates Sculpture Park in New York, MAMCO in Geneva, and major art galleries from New York to Tokyo. From May 15 – August 22, 2010, Nonas will have a one-person exhibition at the Musée d’art moderne de Saint-Étienne Métropole called “Shoots Good, Not Straight”. For more information, please visit www.mam-st-etienne.fr.
ROBERT BARRY Recent Work
A major protagonist and pioneer of Conceptual Art, Robert Barry has been making language-based artwork since the sixties. By arranging words in lists, circles, or scattered compositions on paper, canvases, mirrors, videos, walls, windows, floors and buildings, Barry’s work has explored meaning and its various modes of communication and display. By selecting a potent set of single words, the artist provides viewers with suggestions and possibilities for the relationships between words themselves, between words and images (and words as images), and between words and viewers.
For this show of new work, Barry will present one list of words directly on the wall in silver mirrored text. A second list of words will continue from the wall onto the floor with words in various colors. Every other word in these lists is flipped upside-down, creating a kind of double-direction of meaning in which words address each other and the viewer from oscillating perspectives. Large works on canvas and on paper show words against a grey background, continuing Barry’s investigation into the rich, wordless possibilities of color paired with direct but various significations of language.
With solo shows in major venues around the world, Robert Barry has established himself as one of the foremost artists in the continuing history of Conceptual Art. His work has been included in many major public and museum shows and collections such as documenta 5,6,7, the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, PS1 in New York, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland, Moma New York and Los Angeles and many others. Born in New York in 1936, he lives and works in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Günter Haese
Neue Skulpturen
30.03.2010
-
08.05.2010
Günter Haese has been making mobile sculptures since the late 1950s. In 1964, he became the first German artist after the second world war to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He participated in Documenta in Kassel in 1964 and went on to represent Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1966. His fragile, delicate sculptures are in many important collections include the MoMA and the Guggenheim in
New York and a number of German museum collections.
His sculptures are small in size and made of phosphor bronze wires in metallic and black colors. Every movement in the air or vibration in a room brings them to movement. These tenuous wire compositions become light, poetic constellations. They are precious indeed, with Haese's small oeuvre consisting in just around 400 sculptures over his
decades-long career.
New York and a number of German museum collections.
His sculptures are small in size and made of phosphor bronze wires in metallic and black colors. Every movement in the air or vibration in a room brings them to movement. These tenuous wire compositions become light, poetic constellations. They are precious indeed, with Haese's small oeuvre consisting in just around 400 sculptures over his
decades-long career.
ELGER ESSER
Landschaften - Veduten - Ansichten - heliogravüren
29.01.2010
-
20.03.2010
Elger Esser -Combray(Arc-en-Barrois), Frankreich, 2007, 122 x 139 x 6 cm
Galerie Sfeir-Semler is proud to announce our 4th exhibition of works by Elger Esser (*1967, Stuttgart). This exhibition will feature new landscape photographs as well as the artist’s new series of large-scale heliogravures inspired by Marcel Proust.
Esser studied photography at the Düsseldorf Academy under Bernd and Hilla Becher, but he has been called “the heretic of the Becher class.” (Britta Sachs - FAZ 19.01.2010) Veering from the Becher’s visual language of stark, concrete documentation of architectural typologies in specific historical moments, Esser animates his landscapes with profound sentiment, atmosphere and poetry. His lush pictures are pin sharp and deeply precise, but removed from our identifiable time in history to become dreamlike fantasies of a place as it might exist in one’s imagination.
On view will be a selection of Esser’s landscape photographs, vivid sweeps bathed in hues of blue and yellow ambience. These landscapes stem from the Veduta tradition of 19th Century travel painting, inviting the viewer to gaze into expansive pastoral scenes, empty of people or the markers of contemporary life. Amid these natural landscapes, Esser allows details - fragments of architecture, a bridge, a jetty, a stony wall - to suggest infinity, a place out of time, a kind of mirage. His quiet, meditative, ethereal images are simultaneously vast and vivid, with the sea, rivers, or water opening up to the sky on a brilliantly nuanced pictorial surface.
In addition, we will present Esser’s new heliogravures that conjure Marcel Proust’s imaginary town of Combray with images taken at sites around France. These black and white photo-engravings printed on cotton paper use an antique method of printing that was developed at the dawn of photography and was widely used as a method of illustrating fine publications at the end of the 19th Century. Calling upon his interest in the history of art, photography and literature, this printing technique brings to Esser’s images the most delicate, detailed range of blacks and whites printed at large scale (122 x 139cm, a highly unsual size for heliogravure). The heliogravure emerged from the earliest explorations of photography, aiming to capture and preserve images in time. The poetry of this technique, its relationship to literature and book illustration, the stillness and mystery of Esser’s sites, the indefinable temporality of these images all bring the viewer into their own “recherche du temps perdu,” illuminating the atmosphere of our past, our history, our memory.
Galerie Sfeir-Semler is proud to announce our 4th exhibition of works by Elger Esser (*1967, Stuttgart). This exhibition will feature new landscape photographs as well as the artist’s new series of large-scale heliogravures inspired by Marcel Proust.
Esser studied photography at the Düsseldorf Academy under Bernd and Hilla Becher, but he has been called “the heretic of the Becher class.” (Britta Sachs - FAZ 19.01.2010) Veering from the Becher’s visual language of stark, concrete documentation of architectural typologies in specific historical moments, Esser animates his landscapes with profound sentiment, atmosphere and poetry. His lush pictures are pin sharp and deeply precise, but removed from our identifiable time in history to become dreamlike fantasies of a place as it might exist in one’s imagination.
On view will be a selection of Esser’s landscape photographs, vivid sweeps bathed in hues of blue and yellow ambience. These landscapes stem from the Veduta tradition of 19th Century travel painting, inviting the viewer to gaze into expansive pastoral scenes, empty of people or the markers of contemporary life. Amid these natural landscapes, Esser allows details - fragments of architecture, a bridge, a jetty, a stony wall - to suggest infinity, a place out of time, a kind of mirage. His quiet, meditative, ethereal images are simultaneously vast and vivid, with the sea, rivers, or water opening up to the sky on a brilliantly nuanced pictorial surface.
In addition, we will present Esser’s new heliogravures that conjure Marcel Proust’s imaginary town of Combray with images taken at sites around France. These black and white photo-engravings printed on cotton paper use an antique method of printing that was developed at the dawn of photography and was widely used as a method of illustrating fine publications at the end of the 19th Century. Calling upon his interest in the history of art, photography and literature, this printing technique brings to Esser’s images the most delicate, detailed range of blacks and whites printed at large scale (122 x 139cm, a highly unsual size for heliogravure). The heliogravure emerged from the earliest explorations of photography, aiming to capture and preserve images in time. The poetry of this technique, its relationship to literature and book illustration, the stillness and mystery of Esser’s sites, the indefinable temporality of these images all bring the viewer into their own “recherche du temps perdu,” illuminating the atmosphere of our past, our history, our memory.
WALID RAAD
Scratching on Things I Could Disavow - A History of Art in the Arab World: Part 1_ Volume 1 _ Chapter 1 (Beirut: 1992 - 2005)
13.11.2009
-
16.01.2010
Raad’s ongoing project titled Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of Art in the Arab World proceeds from the recent emergence in the Arab world of a new infrastructure for the visual arts comprising arts festivals, workshops, fairs, biennales, museums, galleries, funds, schools, journals and collections, among others. These developments, when viewed alongside the geo-political, economic, social, and military conflicts that have consumed the region in the past few decades, form a rich and knotty ground for creative work. Raad’s exhibition presents forms and stories made possible by this ground.
Raad refers to the three works in the show (which include sculptures, photographs, and mixed media installations) as stage sets from a forthcoming play about the history of art in the Arab world.
The exhibition expands upon Raad’s The Atlas Group, a 15-year project that examined the social, political, psychological and aesthetic ramifications of the various wars that have been waged in Lebanon.
Walid Raad was born in Chbanieh, Lebanon, in 1967. His work has been exhibited in prominent national and international exhibitions. Most recently, his work was the subject of “The Atlas Group: A Project by Walid Raad,” a one-person show at the Photo Espana 2009 at the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid. Earlier this year “Scratching on Things I Could Disavow” was exhibited at REDCAT, Los Angeles. Raad’s work has also been presented at Documenta 11, Kassel (2002), Homeworks, Beirut (2005), the 2000 and 2002 Whitney Biennials, the 2003 Venice Biennale, the Kitchen, New York (2006) and the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2006). In 2007 Raad was awarded the Alpert Award, presented by CalArts, Los Angeles and in 2009 he was the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. In 2009 Raad was nominated for the HUGO BOSS Price 2010.
Raad lives in Beirut and New York and has been an Associate Professor of Art at The Cooper Union’s School of Art, New York, since 2002.
Raad refers to the three works in the show (which include sculptures, photographs, and mixed media installations) as stage sets from a forthcoming play about the history of art in the Arab world.
The exhibition expands upon Raad’s The Atlas Group, a 15-year project that examined the social, political, psychological and aesthetic ramifications of the various wars that have been waged in Lebanon.
Walid Raad was born in Chbanieh, Lebanon, in 1967. His work has been exhibited in prominent national and international exhibitions. Most recently, his work was the subject of “The Atlas Group: A Project by Walid Raad,” a one-person show at the Photo Espana 2009 at the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid. Earlier this year “Scratching on Things I Could Disavow” was exhibited at REDCAT, Los Angeles. Raad’s work has also been presented at Documenta 11, Kassel (2002), Homeworks, Beirut (2005), the 2000 and 2002 Whitney Biennials, the 2003 Venice Biennale, the Kitchen, New York (2006) and the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2006). In 2007 Raad was awarded the Alpert Award, presented by CalArts, Los Angeles and in 2009 he was the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. In 2009 Raad was nominated for the HUGO BOSS Price 2010.
Raad lives in Beirut and New York and has been an Associate Professor of Art at The Cooper Union’s School of Art, New York, since 2002.
Timo Nasseri
GHAZAL
04.09.2009
-
31.10.2009
Epistrophy III, 2009, Stainless steel, polysterene, wood, 186x202x88cm, unique
SWISS MADE
DANIELE BUETTI . BALTHASAR BURKHARD . GERDA STEINER & JÖRG LENZLINGER . CHRISTINE STREULI
08.05.2009
-
15.08.2009
Randa Mirza
PARALLEL UNIVERSES
30.01.2009
-
21.03.2009
Parallel Universes offers the spectator the gift of ubiquity. The title nods at the "Multiverse theory", the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes embracing together all of reality.
Mirza"s work exposes the coexistence of past and present layers of war and peace realities. Through her visual constructions of horror and leisure, she challenges the gap between politics and entertainment. Manipulating images from the 1975 and 2006 Lebanese wars, Mirza targets the sacred cow of the war photograph to reveal the contraptions of truth lying behind.
The artist softly disturbs the viewers" comfort with surreal representations. Parallel Universes" reciprocal intrusions bring the spectator"s self into conflict. "Where were these pictures taken? Are they "real" or "false"? Where does the picture begin and where do I end? Mirza eliminates the surface of the photograph, forcing the viewer to renegotiate their habitual relation to images.
Like a mirror, Parallel Universes incorporate the spectator"s gaze in the fabric of the image itself.
Mirza"s work exposes the coexistence of past and present layers of war and peace realities. Through her visual constructions of horror and leisure, she challenges the gap between politics and entertainment. Manipulating images from the 1975 and 2006 Lebanese wars, Mirza targets the sacred cow of the war photograph to reveal the contraptions of truth lying behind.
The artist softly disturbs the viewers" comfort with surreal representations. Parallel Universes" reciprocal intrusions bring the spectator"s self into conflict. "Where were these pictures taken? Are they "real" or "false"? Where does the picture begin and where do I end? Mirza eliminates the surface of the photograph, forcing the viewer to renegotiate their habitual relation to images.
Like a mirror, Parallel Universes incorporate the spectator"s gaze in the fabric of the image itself.
MARWAN
Malerei
30.01.2009
-
21.03.2009
MARWAN, Köpfe Juni-Juli-Aug, Sept, 2004, 164 x 228cm
William Anastasi, Dove Bradshaw, Peter Downsbrough, Tadaaki Kuwayama, Maurizio Nannucci, Richard Nonas, Chris Williams
CHOOSING Kuratiert von Robert Barry
28.11.2008
-
27.01.2009
Choice. Choosing. To choose. What is more basic?
Choosing which artists to include in the exhibition,
then asking the artists to choose two works themselves to put in the exhibit, for whatever reasons. I chose mature artists, no one under 50, who have been around a while. Friends, whose work I’ve known for years. Each one with a strong individual style, whose work requires close examination. Artists whose work should be given more opportunity to be seen more often. I chose not to include young emerging artists, paintings, or any of my work.
The artists were asked to give a reason why they chose those two works. If they chose to.
I guess I chose these artists because I just wanted to see more of their work in a proper exhibition space.
Robert Barry, November 2008
Choosing which artists to include in the exhibition,
then asking the artists to choose two works themselves to put in the exhibit, for whatever reasons. I chose mature artists, no one under 50, who have been around a while. Friends, whose work I’ve known for years. Each one with a strong individual style, whose work requires close examination. Artists whose work should be given more opportunity to be seen more often. I chose not to include young emerging artists, paintings, or any of my work.
The artists were asked to give a reason why they chose those two works. If they chose to.
I guess I chose these artists because I just wanted to see more of their work in a proper exhibition space.
Robert Barry, November 2008