The Zeitgeist Open 2015

About

Every year the outcome of the Zeitgeist Open produces an intriguing curatorial theme, one that could not be predicted or planned. Selected artist Kasper Pincis captures flawlessly, in the quote above, the dystopian essence and Kafkaesque wonderland that emerges in the Zeitgeist Open 2015 Exhibition. Everyday objects such as books and supermarket logos collide with the obscure and the anthropological, the miniature, the absurd and the comic. Nothing is quite what it seems with cardboard castles, carnivalesque sculptures and things that explode, implode and blush in the corner. What emerges palpably, is that these artists are in full possession of their intentions and that the investigations and depictions that emerge - worlds with strange new meanings - never lose sight of the artist’s own obsessions.

Pincis uses the phrase ‘art as an expression of economy’ when talking of his economical, exacting and durational drawings, created using the analogue technology of typewriters and photocopiers. This low-tech materiality continues in Simon Brewster’s ‘Argos Circle’ of consumption and consumerism, balancing and hybridising contradictory and contrasting themes. 

Rachel Fallon’s practice relates to dissonance and the uncanny in familiar surroundings. Fallon’s sculpture ‘Spoke’ is based on thoughts of protection and defence in domestic and maternal realms. The conflicts and ambivalences prevalent in familiar territories inform the initial choice of materials and technique for each work. The sheer scale, human size and positioning of the viewer in Frances Kearney’s enigmatic ‘Running Wild’ series of large format photographs explores the connection between self and solitude, nature and stillness. The need for belief systems and personal rituals in order to navigate and function within the chaos and emptiness of our modern technological existence. Kearney is interested in the human psyche, in particular - from a female perspective - the journey from girlhood to womanhood.

In ‘Taking Liberties with the Masters,’ Sasha Bowles questions the meaning and ownership of Old Master images. Working with art history bookplates to create intricate and playful painted interventions, Bowles subtly alters and recontextualises the relationship between the image, the viewer and the original artistic intention.

Tom Down's small paintings on paperback book covers. ‘Distant Lands’ and ‘End of the Line’ have their origins in romanticized clichés sourced from paintings, film, television, illustration and advertising. Approached in a non-hierarchical manner these common motifs, such as alpine vistas, desert valleys, snowbound landscapes and forest scenes are all re-trodden by the artist. Whilst the work revels in these nostalgic ideals, it does not seek to simply replicate specific places; instead, familiar images are composed to create archetypal scenes, blurring the boundaries between the found and the created. He comments on our own unrealistic expectations of these landscapes and of the artifice of painting itself.

The understanding and responding to the cultural constructs that have been formed around the idea of the ‘ exotic' and ‘other' are investigated in Sista Pratesi’s series of short films in ‘The Waterfall Lectures.’ The images depicted create a false sense of separation between the past and the present, between them and us, through drawn interventions connecting us to our history and our species. Anthropological objects, artefacts from antiquity, ritualistic paraphernalia, natural phenomena and anamorphic forms inform Kelly Sweeney’s absurd sculpture ‘Goon.’ Seduced by the realm of the carnivalesque, and the suspended reality it creates, the artist casts a performance in the landscape between reality and theatricality. 

The process of making for Malina Busch – ‘Blushing Corner’ - is a way of lending physical form to the traces left behind by time; a place where materials are used to reconsider and reinvent specific memories, using her surroundings and her temporal sensations. Richard Perry works primarily in sculpture, using the possibility of the object as both a factual and an implied presence. Working in a geometric language, and with sculptural concerns of material, weight and balance in mind, the process is a conflicting one of intuitive adjustment and premeditated decision. This results in forms like ‘Halley 6’ that attempt to break free from an underlying rationale, introducing ideas of illusion and the blurring of 2, and 3-dimensional realms.

Enzo Marra’s droll and absurdist painting ‘Observer (Hauser & Wirth)’ shines an insider light on the art world and its particular artifice and commodification. Ideas of worth and value are examined through Marra's analysis of the activities that occur: in the privacy of an artist’s studio; the hanging and display of works in the gallery; the invigilators and the visitors and observers; the way that those present can give alternative purpose to works on display. In contrast, Duncan McKellar sites his artworks, like ‘Cardboard Castle,’ outside of the gallery to enable an unguarded response from the viewer, encouraging interaction and involving the public through participation and encounter.