"Objects as Friends" is a series of photographic works by Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys that have been activated over the idea of late German amateur painter Johannes. The 311 photographs, which took a long period of time to complete, are on display at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise through April 22, 2018.Johannes was inspired by the banal things around him that were of less use but important to him, which he referred to as friends. The concept of painting these ‘Objects as Friends’ however was not made possible due to his sudden death.Moved by his idea, Belgian visual artists Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys — who have worked together since 1980 making installations, videos, drawings, sculptures, performances and photographs — decided to produce this series. Each of these photographs is composed of a brightly lit arrangement of found objects such as a broken umbrella, a collection of vessels with human faces, pieces of cloth, polystyrene, ceramics, and hubcaps against a dusty grey surface. The former locations or background of these now discarded and invaluable objects include flea markets, one-euro shops amateur pottery courses, rural second-hand stores, and so on.The artists actualize a world of objects and object relations in a sense of hyper-reality or science-fiction fantasy in these photographs through capturing minute details such as the dust covered or by incorporating the correct background colors. A digitally generated world is conveyed through these machine constructed pictures that are joined from various shots. Photographic reality and technological development are given attention in creating images that evoke the truth of mortality of things and life.These unusual and strange appearing works are presented on a colossal, black, monolithic structure at the exhibition space to create a distorted dream-like parallel world. The amalgamation of the dimensions of reality and imagination is visualized here. This exhibition is on view through April 22, 2018 at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, 439 W. 127th Street, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 1002.For details, visit: https://gavinbrown.biz/home/exhibitions/currentClick on the slideshow for a sneak peek at the exhibition.
↧