Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo, is hosting a solo exhibition of work by Andy Hope 1930 titled “Where did it come from!”Featuring a suite of new paintings and two 3-D sculptures, the exhibition marks the first time for the artist’s work to be shown in Japan. For the exhibition at Rat Hole Gallery, Hope’s new works will expand on the representation of the future that the artist started with “Vertical Horizon” (La Biennale di Venezia 2017) and “#believe” (Lomex Gallery, New York, 2017). Enlisting motifs from constructivism, Art Nouveau, cosmic phenomena, communication technologies and the financial market, he explores the collective delusions and existential defaults of contemporary society.In Hope’s new series of abstract paintings, the profane and the metaphysical, the virtuoso and the seemingly primitive, go hand in hand as in “#believe II” (2018), a painting driven by the forces of gravity that looks into the universe through an ordinary garbage can. “We need the old magic” (2018) tries to challenge the concept of the “zero point of painting” with a somewhat naive and clumsy depiction of an “electric sheep” in a distorted black square, which also brings to mind Philip K. Dicks iconic sci-fic novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”“Subprime VI” (2017) and “Subprime VII” (2018) are part of Hope’s CDO-series, named for so-called Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs), portfolios of assets that may include various complexly articulated combinations of bonds, loans, and derivatives. Appropriating the format of diagrams and charts and crossing them with the painterly vocabulary of historical abstraction and the language of subprime ratings, the CDO’s deal with the act of speculation as a promise for the future. The painting titled “Arrival” (2018) transforms the ubiquitous signs of everyday communication technology into manifestations of the sublime, claiming a solemnly moment of beginning (or even alien arrival) that echoes a sci-fi-narrative, whereas “Sanctuary” (2018), a painting that quotes electrical diagrams (circuit boards) as well as organic forms, openly plays with spiritual and religious connotations.Andy Hope 1930 (German, b. 1963) lives and works in Berlin). Formerly known as Andreas Hofer, he adopted his name in 2010, though his work was signed this way from the beginning of his career. The artist associates the year 1930 with a historic caesura, a turning point in the development of the historical avant-garde that faced onto a series of social, political and artistic crises in European modernity.The exhibition is on view through May 20, 2018, at Rat Hole Gallery, 5-5-3-B1 Minami Aoyama Minato-ku Tokyo 107-0062 Japan.For details, visit: http://www.blouinartinfo.com/galleryguide/rat-hole-gallery/overviewClick on the slideshow for a sneak peek at the exhibition.
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