EXHIBITION:
up there down there
OPENING:
Thursday 30 June, 2011
7pm
VENUE:
künstlerhaus k/haus, karlsplatz 5, 1010 Vienna.
“Camouflage is the art of visual deception. And an understanding of the nature of visual deception demands an understanding of the fundamentals of visual perception.”
— John L. Scott, Moholy-Nagy, and György Kepes
up there down there is the first solo exhibition by the British artist Amy Croft. The exhibition’s point of departure is the physical and psychological states of orientation and disorientation within the built environment, and how the sensory experience of a city’s form affects ones ability to identify or distinguish oneself from it. The works in the exhibition respond to the artist’s engagement with contemporary urban planning programmes as well as with two specific figures within the modernist narrative of design and urban planning, namely György Kepes and Kevin Lynch.
up there down there includes a video installation, a set of sculptures, and two historical artefacts. The sculptures are shown as an arrangement of curved plexiglass objects that demonstrate a scale of colours, tones and dimensions. Words such as “distortion”, “form simplicity,” and “visual scope” are printed on the objects. The vocabulary is drawn from Kepes’s “Principles of Camouflage” and Lynch’s “Form Qualities” and introduces the theme of complex viewpoints and an interplay between visibility and invisibility. The room-size video installation features a continuous tracking shot in which the camera glides across the surfaces of the plexiglass sculptures. Alike the roving camera the sculptures are also set in motion by two figures moving through and arranging the filmed space. Accompanied by a four channel soundtrack that draws from the harmonics and cacophony of a dense cityscape, the installation becomes a shifting territory of sound, image and space. Perception of surface and space is translated and mediated from the city, to the printed page, to opaque and transparent plastics, to an illusionary two-way projection screen, a moving video image and a collaged soundscape.
Two historical artefacts link the artist’s interest in Kepes’ design theories to the subject of camouflage: a photograph by Kepes titled Juliet with Peacock Feather (1938) and an article titled “Civilian Camouflage Goes into Action” from Civilian Defense magazine (June, 1942) by John L Scott, Moholy-Nagy, and Kepes. The artist considers camouflage as a permeable layer or a lense between the two perspectives of space used for orientation: aerial view and street view. In drawing this connection, Croft poses the question, could city planning schemes, government marketing programmes or simply the certain architectural style of a city be considered a form of camouflage? And if so, what effect does this control of perception have on the camouflaged subject?
In 1942, Kepes was appointed by the U.S War Department to teach a course in urban camouflage techniques at the New Bauhaus in Chicago. For this challenge he literally subverted his theories of communication through design into miscommunication. In the 1960’s, Kevin Lynch applied Kepes’ notions of visual organisation to the urban environment in his thesis The Image of the City. Here he defined specific form qualities such as ‘form simplicity’, ‘directional differentiation’ or ‘visual scope’ as tools for the urban designer to mediate ones identification with ones surroundings.
up there down there functions on two levels: while the sculptures and video installation provided use the exhibition scenario as a modal for orientation and disorientation, the artefacts contextualize perception as something that is always designed and mediated. In this way, up there down there asks about the ramifications on the contemporary urban planning initiatives and the aestheticisation of identity within the city.
Amy Croft is a British artist currently living and working in Vienna. Her previous exhibitions include BAND, Fluc Wanne, Vienna (2010) Amy Croft & Demoraum Akademie Wien, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz and Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna (2010) Made in the Dark, Haus der Architektur, Graz (2009) and This is the Front Room, Madamme Lillies, London (2009). She has studied at Wimbledon School of Art, London, and at the The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Prof. Monica Bonvicini).
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BAND in Rundgang at Institut für das künstlerische Lehramt, 4. Stock, Karl-Schweighofer-Gasse 3, 1070 Wien
DATES:
Thursday 20 January, 4pm - 12am
Friday 21 January 10am - 8pm
Saturday 22 January 12pm - 8pm
Sunday 23 January 12pm - 8pm
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BAND *Live* at Fluc, Praterstern Vienna,
DATE:
Wednesday 30 June, 2010, 9pm
For documentation of this event follow this link.
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Amy Croft & Demoraum at Grazer Kunstverein
Amy Croft & Demoraum Akademie Wien, Studienraum kuratorische Praxis
Curated by Sören Grammel
OPENING:
Tuesday 19 January 2010, 7.00pm
EXHIBITION CONTINUES:
Saturday 20 February 2010
EVENT:
The exhibition has been devised as the context for the Demoraumseminar 'Gegenwart Kuratorischer Praxis (Present Curatorial Practice)' which took place on 13 - 15 January 2010. Speakers include: Diana Baldon, Diedrich Diederichsen, Sören Grammel, Marion von Osten and Hedwig Saxenhuber. For more information see the website.
VENUE:
Grazer Kunstverein, im Palais Thinnfeld
Mariahilferstraße 2, A-8020 Graz
LINK:
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Exhibition at Demonstrationsraum, Vienna
Curated by Sören Grammel
OPENING:
Tuesday 12 January 2010, 7.30pm
EXHIBITION CONTINUES:
Wednesday 13 - 15 January 2010
EVENT:
The exhibition has been devised as the context for the Demoraumseminar 'Gegenwart Kuratorischer Praxis (Present Curatorial Practice)' which will take place on 13 - 15 January 2010. Speakers include: Diana Baldon, Diedrich Diederichsen, Sören Grammel, Marion von Osten and Hedwig Saxenhuber. For more information see the website.
VENUE:
Demonstrationsraum, Academy of Fine Arts, Studio Building, Lehárgasse 8, 1060 Vienna, Exhibition Space 1st floor north
LINK:
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'Made in the Dark' Haus der Architektur, Graz
An exhibition by Amy Croft and Stefan Eichhorn
OPENING:
Wednesday 2 September, 7pm
EXHIBITION CONTINUES:
Thursday 10 September 2009 (Tuesday - Sunday, 10am-6pm)
VENUE:
HDA im Palais Thinnfeld, Mariahilferstraße 2, 8020 Graz
Produced with the support of Pepinieres
Made in the Dark is an exhibition developed by artists Amy Croft and Stefan Eichhorn from their residencies in Graz, which took place between March and June 2009. During their residencies Amy Croft researched the participatory housing estates of Eilfried Huth, while Stefan Eichhorn developed a contemporary mailing rocket, in homage to the Graz based rocket-researcher Friedrich Schmiedl (1902-1994).
While each artists' project developed independently the exhibition title points to an approach of self-building or D.I.Y, shared by both of the artists' chosen subjects and conjures up images of the lone inventor in his garden shed or the home-maker, unrestrained by architectural fashions . Far from this being a melancholic attitude, Made in the Dark celebrates such demonstrations of individual ingenuity and self-expression.
For the exhibition Amy Croft will develop new work responding to the various forms of her research which included interviews with the residents of 'Am Leopoldsgrund', Puntigam (built: 1976-1982) and 'Eschensiedlung', Deutschlandsberg (built: 1972-1992), documentary photographs of the homes and archival material. The notion of making a public exhibition of such a personal subject as 'home' is an important consideration for Amy and will be transferred into the final works by engaging the audience at different levels of intimacy and proximity.
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