Descripción de la Exposición
For the fifth and sixth iteration of the Capsule exhibition series Haus der Kunst presents two individual projects by Lisbon-based, Portuguese artist duo João Maria Gusmão (*1979) & Pedro Paiva (*1977); and London-based, British artist Sara MacKillop (*1973). Initiated in 2014, the Capsule series is devoted to supporting the realization of new work by young artists of great vitality and incisive conceptual vision. Previous artists presented in the series are Tilo Schulz and Mohamed Bourouissa (2014), Adele Röder and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (2015).
Capsule 05: Peacock, the exhibition presented by João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva, focuses on the artists' newest group of films. The films of Gusmão and Paiva are characterized by short, silent, enigmatic scenes and an ongoing investigation into human vision. Their imagery contains a variety of references—to the history of film and visual anthropology, to science and art, to cultural and religious history. Yet their films do not attempt to prove theories. Rather, the artists are committed to the idea of visual experimentation and to showing the viewer the limits of the visible.
In Peacock, the artists explore the relation between different appearances: the ghostly, the animal, the human, and the inhuman and how these concepts are entangled in an anthropomorphic system. Shot on grainy 16mm film, the meaning of appearance itself is at stake, which, on the one hand focuses all attention on the surface, a consideration of the external world, and on the other explores the meaning of "performance," "(self-)image," and "illusiveness." The theatrical setting is of particular interest, as it enables different kinds of appearances to materialize in the course of their transformation.
In Capsule 06: Window Display Sara MacKillop presents new works in a spatial constellation that directly engages with the exhibition space. When encountering Sara MacKillop's work, close attention to detail is requisite. MacKillop employs quotidian material ranging from office stationery, pens, envelopes, and fax paper, to cardboard boxes, wall paper, and record sleeves. Easily identifiable, the artist subtly interferes with these ephemeral items' attributes and dimensions. With every intervention, whether as a mark or incision, the familiar is de-realized and rendered unfamiliar, while the unremarkable becomes notable. MacKillop's artist books of appropriated mail order catalogues and typewriter manuals, or restrained arrangements of colored pencils, disclose not only a sense of humor, but also point to the artist's fascination with bureaucratic systems, seriality, and patterns, which she subtly erodes and interrupts – much as a scratched vinyl record skips a beat. It is with these slight shifts and incremental changes that MacKillop manages to reveal the poetic in the ordinary.
Capsule 05 is curated by Anna Schneider.
Capsule 06 is curated by Julienne Lorz.
Exposición. 17 dic de 2024 - 16 mar de 2025 / Museo Picasso Málaga / Málaga, España
Formación. 01 oct de 2024 - 04 abr de 2025 / PHotoEspaña / Madrid, España
