BASEL.- Von Bartha is presenting two solo exhibitions by Christian Andersson (Kitbash Tales) and Terry Haggerty (Into the Wind) in the gallery’s Basel space, until 30 April, 2022.
For his third exhibition at von Bartha, Christian Andersson continues his practice of fusing together different times and tropes in a set of new works. Together they form something of a semi-transparent encyclopaedia where fragments blur into each other to shape new interpretations and aspects. The exhibition title is a reference to the term kitbashing, a name given to the practice in modelmaking where a new scale model is created by taking pieces from already existing kits or models. This bashing and fusing of kits can be found throughout the cluster of works on show, where Andersson animates a set of hybrids, given new features and means; In Marrow a medieval statue holding a mathematical model becomes a pathfinder towards higher dimensions. Additionally, in The Omega Stretch a limestone rock carries a fossil foreshadowing our anthropocene era and in Sphinx a 90’s exhibition poster reveals a riddle designed for a (then) future setting. In Kitbash Tales we are offered a set of stories, told in a time where the past doesn’t seem to be quite through with us and the present is growing more complex by the second.
Entitled Into the wind, Terry Haggerty’s exhibition consists of a brand-new body of work, shown for the first time at von Bartha. Made of aluminum, bonded to plywood, a technical innovation in Haggerty’s oeuvre, and fabricated in Italy, the sloping edges, the cut-out sections and the shapes reflect Haggerty’s time spent living near the Mediterranean Sea. In their reduction to what is mostly monochrome color and their formal simplification, Haggerty‘s varying line/stripe combinations oscillate between the planimetric structure of the surface and the illusory perception of three dimensionality. With a lyrical appearance, the shaped forms appear distorted, curving away with hard strips cutting through, a departure from Haggerty’s typical style of flat works featured in previous shows. The paintings are conflicting in their dual ability to present contrasting actions of flatness and perspective.
The cuts, penetrating at various angles, leave a channel that is both structural and destabilizing to the sail motif—letting the wind pass through and giving the impression of an invisible mast or pillar of support. The exhibition is a cohesive body of works that flow from one color to another, each in its own shade, tonally shifting subtly from a deep sea blue to a murkier darker hue.
Christian Andersson was born 1973 in Stockholm, Sweden and currently lives and works in Paris, France. He recently had solo shows at Museum CIAJG, Guimarães (2018), Kunstmuseum Thun, Thun (2015), as well as Palais de Tokyo, Paris and Moderna Museet, Malmö (both 2011). Lately his work has been on view in group exhibitions at Forum Arte Braga, Portugal; Fundación Otazu, Pamplona, Spain; SIC, Helsinki, Finland (2018), Galeria Municipal, Porto, Portugal; Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö (2017), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg,, Germany; Palais du Tau / FRAC Campagne Ardenne, Reims, France; Boymans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, Belgium and The Living Art Museum (Nýló), Reykjavik, Iceland (2016).
This spring he has been invited to do solo presentations at Frac Normandie in Rouen and Centro de Arte Visuais in Coimbra, Portugal. In November his work will be on view in the exhibition ’A Gateway To Possible Worlds’ at Centre Pompidou Metz, France.
Terry Haggerty was born in London and studied at the Cheltenham School of Art, Gloucester-shire. He has exhibited widely at galleries and museums around the world, including Sikkema Jenkins, New York; Max Hetzler, Berlin; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Aldrich Museum, Conecticut; and PS1, Long Island City. Commissions include wall drawings for Dallas Cowboys Sta-dium, Munich Re, London, and private collections in the US and Germany. Haggerty is the recipi-ent of several awards including the For-Site foundation Award(2009), John Anson Kittredge Award (2003); and the Natwest Art Prize (1999). The concept of the trompe-l’oeil; the interplay between reality and illusion, has always fascinated artists.
In this way, with the simple gesture of curving lines, Haggerty is able to create complex illusions, garnering both volume and depth. The artist carefully considers ambiguous forms and likenesses, to familiar indicators of space such as ledges, edges, corner and gaps. Nevertheless, the viewer is not only drawn to Haggerty’s paintings as a result of the suggestion of plasticity, but also owing to their cool, smooth, machine-like surface perfection.
