INHALE is a cultural platform where artists are presented, where great projects are given credit and readers find inspiration. Think about Inhale as if it were a map: we can help you discover which are the must-see events all over the world, what is happening now in the artistic and cultural world as well as guide you through the latest designers’ products. Inhale interconnects domains that you are interested in, so that you will know all the events, places, galleries, studios that are a must-see. We have a 360 degree overview on art and culture and a passion to share.
Blain|Southern will present Candy, an exhibition bringing together the work of the celebrated artists Damien Hirst and Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
This is the first time that paintings from Hirst’s Visual Candy series have been presented together exclusively, and a candy spill work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres will serve as a counterpoint to the paintings. The exhibition showcases the ways in which each artist used the signifier of candy during the early 1990s, exploring questions of pure aesthetics and identity.
Featured in this exhibition is Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled”, 1992, a unique sculpture made of candies individually wrapped in variously coloured cellophane. Copiously piled in corners or spread across the floor as glittering carpets, the work can be manifested repeatedly in different forms and can continually change shape through every presentation. Although unique, the nature of the work is such that it can exist in more than one place at a time, and it will be installed in three different forms within the gallery.
Dippy Dappy Dabby
photo blainsouthern.com
The viewer is invited to actively participate, freely choosing whether to touch, take or consume the candy, engaging in a vibrant and multisensory experience. These sweets may be replenished regularly by gallery staff, creating a dynamic and varied ebb and flow. The volume and form of the work is thus altered throughout each day, continual change becoming the only element of permanence that defines the ‘life’ of the work.
Gonzalez-Torres once described how the candy spills were about learning to ‘let go’, a ‘refusal to make a static form [or] monolithic sculpture, in favor of a disappearing, changing, unstable and fragile form.’ Indeed, the candy spills imply that change enables the means for our continued existence; that life itself is in a permanent state of flux. Linear time collapses, as past, present and future coexist within these works, which have the possibility to be continually replenished or to simply disappear; the expansiveness of any moment, beyond the physical, is suggested.
Happiness
photo blainsouthern.com
The Visual Candy paintings, which were made between 1993 and 1995, were created as a direct riposte to an art critic who had dismissed Hirst’s Spot Paintings as ‘just visual candy’. Addressing the viewer on a deliberately emotional and instinctive level, these works, abetted by their exuberant titles, among them Some Fun (1993) and Dippy Dappy Dabby (1993), set out to question the implication that aesthetically pleasing art is inherently insignificant.
While ostensibly abstract, the paintings in fact depict medicinal pills, and can be seen as a stylised depiction of the psychological effects of happy, mood-enhancing drugs. Hirst once described how, ‘in every painting there is a subliminal sense of unease… the colours project so much joy it’s hard to feel it, but it’s there. The horror underlying everything.’ In this context, the Visual Candy paintings, despite their surface optimism, possess a disquieting undercurrent of tension and darkness – born from an awareness of the inevitable low that follows any high.
Some Fun
photo blainsouthern.com
Hirst once said that ‘art is about life – there isn’t anything else.’ The same could be said of Gonzalez-Torres’ work, which finely balances an exploration of personal life, relationships and identity with socio-political issues of public and private space. Moreover, Hirst’s statement that producing ‘series’ of work ‘theoretically helps you avoid death’ offers a sense of timelessness to his practice, and as in Gonzalez-Torres’ installations, suggests that life is transcended through art.
“Untitled”, 1992
photo blainsouthern.com
via blainsouthern.com
Leave a Reply
10:46
09:46
03:46
17:46
16:46
10:46
09:46
09:46
08:46
The application period for Spring 2015 Artist in Residence program is now open. 33OC seeks proposals from international professional artists interested in working within the Toffia environment for a one month period. 33OC Artist Residency program was developed to become a space & community where international artists can share places, experiences and sensibilities. The aim […]
Private studio retreats in a collaborative atmosphere for Spring 2015. Grin City Collective welcomes applications from artists of all disciplines at all stages of their career for residencies in rural Iowa, USA. Residents receive individual housing and studio space and may elect to participare in one of the following outreach programs: Social Practice Project: 1st Block […]
maumau writer-in-residence program the program aims to create an atmosphere for writers in which they can work isolated from everyday life while experiencing the inspiring nature of istanbul. please check the information document before you submit your application form to info@maumauworks.com with a topic “writer-in-residence program”. please specify the the residency you apply on the topic which residency […]
Applications are now being accepted for month long residencies at the Bellagio Center. Deadline: December 1, 2014 The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center’s mission is to promote innovation, creativity, and impact-oriented solutions to critical global problems. Residencies and conferences at the Center, located in northern Italy, support work in the Foundation’s key issue areas: Advance Health, […]
Public Recordings: 8 DAYS IV – A Gathering of Choreographers An intensive encounter open to Canadian contemporary choreographers. 8 DAYS is an intensive encounter open to Canadian contemporary choreographers. The gathering values curiosity, questioning and reflection on how we work in order to deepen choreographic practices. The ongoing 8 DAYS project addresses a need for […]
Body Becoming ANIMA CASA RURAL ARTIST RESIDENCY Thematic Residency “Body Becoming.” BODY BECOMING : The body figures as the most important place upon which many of our stories play out. From the Greeks who admired and celebrated the nude, to the Confucian Koreans who covered it eroticizing only small amounts of visible skin, the body […]
Countryside Residency for International Artists in Rome, Italy Best of both worlds in this residency in the countryside just 40-minutes by train from vibrant Rome! Get inspired by this artist residency in the countryside of Rome! The non-profit organization ‘c.r.e.t.a. rome’ offers an international self-funded residency program in the countryside of Rome, Italy. The Italian […]
