___________________________________________________________
Simona Brinkmann, Docile Brutes II, 2014, steel, rope.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Simona Brinkmann, Rig, 2014, leather, meatl, oak.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Simona Brinkmann, Installation View, The Agency 2014
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Anja Carr, Kindersurprise, 2012, live performance
___________________________________________________________
|
___________________________
'HOLD ON ! Simona Brinkmann Gallery 1
LET GO! Anja Carr Gallery 2
___________________________
the Agency is pleased to present new sculptures by Simona Brinkmann in Gallery 1. In Gallery 2 the Agency and NOWAY in collaboration present performance work by the Norwegian artist Anja Carr.
Simona Brinkmann’s sculptures address the fetishisation of objects and the shifting demarcations of public and private. Her choice of materials (leather, metal and glass ) deconstructs the architectural interior and emphasises partitions and movement control. Her references are wide -ranging: fences scaled up or down, revolutionary barricades, crowd barriers or flood barriers and cattle guards used for animal control in the food industry. She subtly subverts her original sources by hand-making the objects and displacing them from their familiar use environments to the gallery space.
Brinkmann’s sculptures covet weightlessness. Her objects are suspended or leaning, mobile or modular and can be applied in different locations or situations. Each time they are devised in a manner that creates obstacles, barriers or simply divisions of space. They allude to a game of power and control, yet, they remain unstable propositions which are easily reconfigured to change meaning. Control lite – where the fetishistic aspect is never fully realised, a slippage which results in a political rather than a personal reading of the work. The politics of enclosure as a means of domination in an institutional context are exemplified by the throught-provoking sentence by Gilles Deleuze “The coils of the serpent are even more complex than the burrows of a molehill” 1. He described the onset of what we now live with as our current model of social control. We live in a highly developed society where overt control is snubbed as immoral, yet we have created a complex web of institutionalised processes and codes devised to select and exclude. Simona Brinkmann’s sculptures visualise what our intuition already tells us and which fills us with as much anxiety as attraction.
At the intersection of the political and the personal in her work lies the possibility of a feminist reading. It is not overtly emphasised but also not obfuscated. Compounded by their elegant appearance and strong sensory quality Brinkmann’s sculptures can be read as a feminine take on existing power structures, adding a fresh voice to conceptual works on power structures by women from the mid-Eighties onwards.
___________________________
HOLD ON! is Simona Brinkmann’s first solo show at the Agency. The exhibition in Gallery 1 will be accompanied by Let Go! , a live performance and presentation of work by Norwegian artist Anja Carr, showcased by NOWAY.
“Known for her pyscho kitsch-pop works, Carr is one of the young forerunners of Norway’s experimental art scene. Her works (installations comprised of video, performance, sculpture and photography) create transcendental worlds that the observer enters through Carr’s uniquely constructed aesthetic: surreal and disturbing they startle and unsettle the viewer. “ Charlotte Jansen
___________________________
Simona Brinkmann was born in Milan and lives and works in London. She has exhibited in the UK and internationally, including at Maria Stenfors, London; Zabludowicz Collection, London; MOT International, London; Treignac Projet, Treignac, France; Netwerk Centrum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Aalst, Belgium; Marc de Puechredon, Basel; Kleio Projects, New York; and the ((audience)) festival of surround sound art in New York, Syracuse and Toronto. She was the recipient of the Clifford Chance Sculpture Award in 2007, Artist In Residence at Kingston University in 2011/2012 and at the University of Hertfordshire (2013/2014).
_____________________________
Anja Carr has previously performed and exhibited at W139 in Amsterdam (NL), Galerie Hamburger Platz, Berlin (DE), Coney Island, New York (US), Art Goes Kapakka Festival, Helsinki (FI), Le Générateur, Plateforme and La Maison de Norvège, Paris (FR) and extensively in her native country, Norway. She holds a Masters in Fine Art from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts as well as a BFA from Bergen National Academy of the Arts and Kunsthochshule, Berlin. Carr also runs the non-profit art space PINK CUBE, Oslo.
|
 |