Installation shots of 'Sequelism...', Arnolfini, Bristol on Latitudes' website
Tue, Jul 21 2009
Francesc Ruiz 'Untitled' (Bristol) 2009. Photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
We have uploaded a slideshow with installation shots (CLICK HERE) of the recently inaugurated exhibition 'Sequelism Part 3: Possible, Probable, or Preferable Futures' on view at Arnolfini, Bristol until 20 September 2009.
'Sequelism, Part 3: Possible, Probable or Preferable Futures' is an exhibition project that looks into the future and at that which is yet to happen. It considers how the inexact arena of futurology is used as a means to better comprehend the present and the past.
'Sequelism Part 3' includes works by Mariana Castillo Deball (1975, Mexico City. Lives in Berlin/Amsterdam), Heman Chong (1977, Malaysia. Lives in Berlin/Singapore), Graham Gussin (1960, London. Lives in London), Victor Man (1974, Cluj–Napoca. Lives in Cluj–Napoca), Francesc Ruiz (in residency) (1971 Barcelona. Lives in Barcelona/Berlin), Jordan Wolfson (1980, New York. Lives New York/Berlin) and Haegue Yang (1971 Seoul. Lives in Berlin/Seoul).
Haegue Yang, 'Holiday for Tomorrow', 2007. Photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
Taking the style of a magical realist tale or children's story, Mariana Castillo Deball's 'Nobody Was Tomorrow' (2007) consists of three interconnected stories based on the fictional connections between three real ‘characters’ – ‘Nobody’ a defunct accelerating aging machine, a sprawling fig tree and the remains of a Roman bath in Čačak, Serbia. Castillo Deball makes us mindful of culture’s fortunes through a swirling fable about the sedimentation of time, encapsulated by an image of a damaged book.
'Index (Down)' (2009) is part of Heman Chong's ongoing series ‘Surfacing’, which requires the action of putting up 3000 stickers on a wall within a given set of instructions. The red triangular stickers are intended to resemble the downward pointing arrows used to denote a fall in value of stock exchanges. Considering the paranoia around the scenario of economic freefall, Index (Down) uses this motif to create an abstract pattern evoking a waterfall.
Graham Gussin's 'Hypnotic/Dystopic/Optic' (2009) presents a ‘horizon line’ of rotating record covers for soundtracks to renowned dystopian science fiction films. The covers are set to rotate at the speed at which their images ‘vaporise’ at the limit of visual comprehension. 'In The Not Too Distant Future (Self Portrait with Sleeping Masks)' (2009) is a self-portrait of the artist inspired by a scene from the film La Jetée (1962) concerning an experiment in time travel following a nuclear war.
Francesc Ruiz's stair barriers installation 'Untitled (Bristol)' (2009) takes the shop windows of the high streets in the south of Bristol – East Street and North Street – as sequential units akin to comic-book vignettes. Ruiz has created a narrative around a dystopian future in which destruction, revolt, and anger have invaded the city after an economic downturn.
Jordan Wolfson 'Untitled' (2007) centres on a 1984 Macintosh 128k, the first affordable home computer to use a mouse-driven graphical user interface. The computer is seen stranded by the side of a road in Connecticut, built in the late 1930s following the Great Depression. The soundtrack comprises a triumphalist monologue concerning the emergence of American abstract painting in the 1950s. Wolfson is interested in obsolescence and in these elements as generational touchstones.
Victor Man's three pieces could be read in terms of premonition and symbolic rites which relate to the uncertainty of the future in a similar way that memory relates to the past. A taxidermy fox head is wedged within a metal structure as if a votive or magical offering. Vinyl text on a wall is negated by a neon ‘X’. A ceramic funerary plate bears the image of stars, whose arrangement has often been interpreted by man in terms of fate and fortune.
Haegue Yang's 'Holiday for Tomorrow' (2007) considers our perception of time, and the emotional anticipation of holidays, those socially-agreed days in which labour is suspended and we attempt to rest our bodies and minds. At its centre is a video essay showing Seoul during the Korean harvest holiday Chuseok over which a female voice reflects on the postponement of desire and the dysfunctional hopes triggered by enforced leisure.
Accompanying events and film programme here.
Exhibition curated by Nav Haq (Curator, Arnolfini) and Latitudes.
Supported by the State Corporation for Spanish Cultural Action Abroad (SEACEX), the Direction of Cultural and Scientific Relations of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Institut Ramon Llull, IFA, National Arts Council, Singapore and The Ratiu Family Foundation.
