you can tell a cowboy by the horse he rides
Barbara Seiler is very happy to open her new gallery with a group of seven young artists from Europe and the United States. you can tell a cowboy by the horse he rides presents the works of Heimir Björgúlfsson, Reed Danziger, Kara Hearn, Marc Nagtzaam, Sebastiaan Schlicher, Ante Timmermans and Marijn van Kreij, and gives a first précis about the future program of the gallery.
Meow Gallery: The gallery is empty.
Marc Nagtzaam (1968, Netherlands), Ante Timmermans (1976, Belgium) and Marijn van Kreij (1978, Netherlands) all work with drawings as drawings, focusing on the formal and process-related aspect of the medium. Elements of texts, forms and patterns are combined in interplay of signs; words or processes repeated or copied from the copy of the copy. Difference and repetition, be it words, entire sentences, shapes such as patterns from the inside of an envelop or shapes unfolding into entire landscapes are recurrent themes. The three artists will exhibit their drawings in an interactive autonomy in two rooms of the gallery, presenting individual statements of their work yet loosely responding to each other’s practice.
The kitchen will host Kara Hearn’s (1973, USA) video installation The temporary and heroic transcendence of one’s fate, 2008, which is about a man acting out scenes, real and imagined, within the context of the artist’s own life. By taking out drawings and props that appear in the video and presenting them in the awkward setting of the kitchen the artist blurs the line between reality and narration.
Heimir Björgúlfsson (1975, Iceland) and Reed Danziger (1966, USA), both representatives of the Los Angeles / San Francisco art scene, elaborate on nature, yet approaching it from very different angles. Reed Danziger creates complex drawings that combine repeating patterns and ornaments with organic shapes and cellular forms from nature. Heimir Björgúlfsson takes nature as he finds it with his camera or in science books and creates new, often disturbing or threatening scenes by adding the various elements to collages. The title of the series arctic tropic trash soundtracks is derived from a live recording he did in 2003 and reveals something about his teenage punk rock past.
Sound is also an important element in Sebastiaan Schlicher’s (1975, Netherlands) work, who is also the founder of the artist-collective Amerikan Teenager. In response to the colorful past of the exhibition space, he will turn the bathroom, including bathtub, into an installation combining wall paintings, video and sound. His works on paper are an assemblage of wild punk and ironic lyrics, figurative and abstract expressions, and statements about music, fashion and subcultures.
Bulletin No.1 with artist contribution by Marijn van Kreij is available in a limited number at the gallery.
Please contact the gallery at barbara@barbaraseiler.ch or by phone at +41 43 317 4210 for further information.