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___________________________________________________________ Installation View, “A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses ___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________ Kati Heck, alles muss, nichts darf, , oil, charcoal, timber mix on stitched canvas, 90 x 120, 2013 ___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________ Doris A. Day, Bugs Bunny Goes To War, oil on canvas, 110 x 150 cm ___________________________________________________________
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___________________________________________________________ top: Installation View Kostas Tsolis, Doris A Day, ___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________ Installation View, Doris A Day, North Korea Story, Kostas Tsolis, GS (right) ___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________ Kostas Tsolis, 7.4.1944, Installation View, The Agency 2014 ___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________ Kostas Tsolis, 7.4.1944,acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 cm,2013 ___________________________________________________________
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______________________________ Doris A. Day, Kati Heck, Kostas Tsolis“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.” 'Gallery 1 and 2______________________________ The Agency presents the curated group exhibition “A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead”, featuring painters Doris A Day (GB), Kati Heck (DE) and Kostas Tsolis (GR). The exhibition looks at painting in the digital age by bringing together three artists who make use of narrative whilst also applying techniques of omission and obliteration. Through their conscious interventions (with very divergent approaches) they circumvent the discussion about the found image and the photographic quotation as well as the notion of genre altogether. The exhibition reflects on the fact that narrative, literary or visual, remains paramount in the post-digital age. The form has changed trough trans-medial dissemination into a more fragmentary presence with many tangents, which in turn influences the way painting reflects this. The title reminds of the narrative thread of Graham Greene’s “ the End of the Affair”, in which the end of the affair is the beginning of the story. Seeking to unearth a woman’s secret love life an ex-lover and her husband realise too late that she made a promise to a higher power. In this exhibition the artist assumes the role of that power, which changes the course of things or our perception respectively. In jest and (literally) through the blinds the ballad of human behaviour unfolds. The choice of the outcome seems arbitrary/ sur-real or un-real – the narrative however resonates much further. Questions of authentication, games with authority and the manufacture of truth (and justice) are the currency all three artists are colliding with. Without proposing a theme or a coherence Heck’s girl protagonists/ multiple herselfs are commenting on the abuse of the libertine by society/the art system, Day’s works represent controversial personae in the moment of being laid bare in a psychological standoff - Kim Jon-un as a child learning from his mother, Pistorius during his trial, himself as Doris Day or as Bugs Bunny- and Tsolis reworks historical events as political thrillers observed from the off as he also demonstrates in the current group show” No Country for Young Men” at Bozar, Brussels , curated by Katarina Gregos. A kind of portraiture / story is a key to reading the works and yet the artists fragment the portraits and narratives by formal means. The depiction of a recognisable self, hero, prisoner of conscience or the infamous are coincidental. The partial dispensation with form can be understood as the gesture of the post-digital painter. Kati Heck ( b. 1979), lives and works in Antwerp. Selected recent exhibitions include KOPF=Kopfnuss, CAC Malaga (2013), Tim van Laere Gallery (2011 and 2014)( both solo), Painters’ Painter, Saatchi Gallery ( 2012), CADAVRE EXQUIS. A FIGURE OF PAINTING, LLS 387, Antwerp ( 2013) and Gsuffa, der eiserne Pomoment, Mary Boone Gallery, NYC in 2008 ( solo). The Agency first showed her work in 2006. Doris A. Day (b. 1982), lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include On/Off, Espace Commines Paris (2011), Same Heads Gallery Berlin (2012) The Toolshed, Froome (2013, solo), Duchamp Festival, HerneBay (2013). He was long-listed for the John Moores Prize 2014. Kostas Tsolis (b. 1964) lives and works in Athens, Recent exhibitions include, Michael Cacoyiannis Foundation (2011), The Jewish Museum, Thessaloniki (2011), Newtopia at City Museum of Mechelen, Belgium (2012), The National Theater, Athens (2013, solo), Agora: the 4th Athens Biennial (2013), and his work is currently included in "No Country for Young Men" curated by Katerina Gregos at BOZAR in Brussels, through August 3.
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