EXHIBITIONS
PRESENCE, Curated by Robert Mollers
Nina Jan Beier and Marie Jan Lund, Marit Følstad, Paul Housley, Yun Lee
April 18 - May 31, 2008
TONY WIGHT GALLERY is pleased to present Presence, a group exhibition curated by Robert Mollers. Presence features the work of five artists: Marit Følstad, Paul Housley, Yun Lee, and collaborative team Nina Jan Beier and Marie Jan Lund. Working in a range of media that spans video, performance, painting, sculpture and photography, the artists showcased in Presence collectively address dialogues on identity, group relationships, desire and solitude.
Nina Jan Beier and Marie Jan Lund create situations that examine the dynamics of group interaction in both private and public spheres. Central to Beier and Lund’s work is a simple directive that motivates each of their projects. These statements are as much an imperative to carry out an action as they are a caption for the work’s documentation. In their series The Challenges, groups of people are given instructions with an inbuilt premise that generates friction either amongst the group itself, or in their encounters with their surroundings. The Challenges #2 is a photograph of a group of students who have been asked to look through a stranger’s window until their gazes are met by someone inside. Similarly motivated, the video Hide Behind the Trees was produced by giving groups of people a simple instruction to perform collectively. Beier and Lund’s The Dedication (To J.R.R. Tolkein, To one who said that myths were lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver) is a sculpture constructed out of two books, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis and Mythopoeia by J.R.R. Tolkein, that have been stood upright and glued together. Also included is The Conversations (The exquisite corpse will drink the young wine), a work made from folded paper and watercolor, part of a series of collective compositions made using the Surrealist principle of the exquisite corpse.
Marit Følstad works in video, sound, photography, sculpture and performance. Følstad’s recent video Stop Talking incorporates her recent interest in the cultural significations of a universally banal fruit, the banana. Noting Swedish scientist Carl von Linné’s initial development of the crop in Europe, as well as his belief in the fruit’s connection to the Garden of Eden, Følstad’s video addresses both the provocative and unremarkable aspects of the banana. Stop Talking also considers notions of remixing through its soundtrack, produced in collaboration with DJ Rune Lindbæk. A new working method for Følstad, the soundtrack is informed by Erik Satie’s musique ameublemente, created out of fragments of pre-existing music. Accompanying the video piece, Følstad has created two neon works, text-pieces that read “secrets” (in purple), and “lust” (in black and white). The seductive qualities of neon lighting are here considered alongside neon’s specific physical characteristics to convey the performative potential of language and form.
Paul Housley is a painter who reconsiders the relationship between artist and subject through a series of intimately-scaled oil on canvas paper works depicting toys and other objects kept in the artist’s studio. Using a vibrant palette that is muddied by grays and browns, Housley creates an atmosphere of self-imposed personal solitude and casual introspection. The works depict a multitude of mundane curios: a laughing skull, a wide-eyed blue owl, a seated doll figurine, and so on, all executed with a facility and adeptness that demonstrates the deep familiarity of the objects themselves.
Yun Lee works in photography to establish relationships between objects and the people who use them. In these selections from her Private World series, the artist simultaneously examines classic portraiture and still life. Each piece in Lee’s series is a diptych of photographs: on the left, the subject for which the piece is named, and on the right, a fragmented excerpt from their domestic interior. In each portrait the subject’s gaze is decisively deflective, calmly looking to the side, above, or below the camera lens. Paired with a fragmented view of their living quarters, Lee’s careful juxtaposition of these elements invites the viewer to consider how objects and material choices dually inform our perceptions of self and our perceptions of others.
Nina Jan Beier and Marie Jan Lund were recent artists-in-residence at the Tokyo Wonder Site Institute of Contemporary Art and International Cultural Exchange, and have previously staged performances at the Tate Modern, London. Solo exhibitions include Dance Like I Do at Arhus Kunstbygning, Center for Contemporary Art, Aarhus and Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Cph; and You Us Or You Me at M + R Gallery, London and Spacex Center for Contemporary Art, Exeter. Beier and Lund have collaborated since 2003 and are based in London.
Marit Følstad is an Oslo-based artist who has exhibited widely in the U.S. and in Europe. Solo exhibitions include It’s All In My Head at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; Amplified at Gallery F15, Moss, Norway; and Strategies for Living at the Museum of
Installation, London. Group exhibitions include Scarecrow at the Averoff Museum, Metsovo, Greece; and Between You and Me at Arthouse, Austin, TX. Følstad’s work has been collected by the Sound Art Museum, Rome and the Malmø Konstmuseum, Sweden.
Paul Housley has been featured in solo exhibitions at Sunday L.E.S., New York; Wilkinson Gallery, London; Durham Light Infantry Museum; and Reg Vardy Gallery, Sunderland. Group exhibitions have been at The Approach, London, Hotel Gallery,
London, and Hales Gallery, London, among others. He was the recipient of a Durham Cathedral Residency and a drawing fellow of the Evelyn Williams Trust. Housley lives and works in London.
Yun Lee received a degree from the Düsseldorf Academy, where she studied under Jannis Kounellis and Thomas Ruff. Lee has had solo exhibitions at the Rheinisches LandesMuseum, Bonn; Lumiere Gallery, Seoul; and the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum,
Aachen. Upcoming group exhibitions will take place at the Frauenmuseum, Bonn; Leeum Samsung Museum, Seoul; and NON-contemporary, Düsseldorf. She has receieved a dHCS Atelier Stipendium, the Lumiére International Photography award, and a Rheinischer Kunstpreis. Lee lives and works in Düsseldorf.
Robert Mollers is an arts enthusiast who has collected internationally for over thirty years. He lives in Chicago.