Photo: Filippo Armellin
Cabinet inaugura la mostra “Ivan Seal feat. The Caretaker” una collaborazione speciale tra l’artista inglese Ivan Seal e il progetto di musica sperimentale elettronica The Caretaker.
Nella pratica pittorica classica, possiamo definire - Natura Morta - la rappresentazione di oggetti sottratti dal loro ambiente naturale, un processo artificiale, solitamente creato in studio, in cui un piano e una fonte luminosa astratta trattengono il ricordo effimero di “vite” passate.
Il lavoro di Ivan Seal (Stockport, UK, 1973) si lega imprescindibilmente a tale DNA estetico ma con l’eccezione di abbandonare la realtà quale fonte primaria di ispirazione. Le sue sono figure principalmente desunte da un suo intimo contenitore mnemonico, ricordi sparsi che si traslitterano su tela in una rappresentazione in perenne equilibrio tra il risolto e il sospeso; un complesso processo di risintonizzazione psichica che spazia tra istantanei attimi di vita vissuta, sognata o desiderata.
Efflorescenze policrome, irrigidimenti metamorfici o semplici elementi in stasi si innalzano ben saldi su dei supporti d’invenzione o esplicitamente poggiati su sfondi uniformi, allontanando l’osservatore da qualsiasi forma di riferimento spazio-temporale. Anche le figure rappresentate, come in un rapidissimo flashback, rinunciano alla loro definizione didascalica - mai “formandosi” del tutto - spostando il ricordo dell’artista da una semplice ricerca del passato alla visualizzazione di un inesplorato futuro.
Otto i lavori pensati appositamente per lo spazio; sette dei quali, delle medesime dimensioni, si allineano perfettamente cadenzando un’esasperata simmetria Lynchiana. Come finestre aperte sui “capricci” mentali di Ivan Seal, questi apparati non-sense, respingenti e distorti, si ordinano e allo stesso tempo si sciolgono nelle note flebili e rituali di una composizione in loop composta da Leyland Kirby aka The Caretaker, progetto di musica sperimentale fondato nel 1996 e celebre per le sue ricerche nel campo della memoria e della nostalgia. Rinnovando una precedente collaborazione, la song inedita si diffonde nell’ambiente tramite un piccolo impianto audio posto al centro della galleria creando un flusso ondivago tra colore e melanconia.
Cabinet opens the exhibition “Ivan Seal feat. The Caretaker”, a special collaboration between the English artist Ivan Seal and the experimental, electronic music project The Caretaker.
In the classical painting tradition, we can define “Still Life” as the representation of objects removed from their natural atmosphere, an artificial process, normally created in a studio, in which a plane and an abstract source of light maintain an ephemeral reminderof passed “lives”.
The work of Ivan Seal (Stockport, UK. 1973) ties in unavoidably with this aesthetic DNA, but with the difference of abandoning the reality that was the primary source of inspiration. His figures generally emerge from an intimate mnemonic repository, sparse memories that transliterate themselves on the canvas in a representation that is in perpetual equilibrium between resolve and interruption; a complex process of psychic re-synchronization that sweeps through instantaneous moments of life lived, dreamed or desired.
Polychrome efflorescence or simple elements in stasis rise with firmness on imagined supports or uniform backgrounds, distancing the observer from any form of spatial-temporal reference. The represented figures, like in a brief flashback, renounce their didactic definition, constituting themselves in precarious formalisms, saturated conglomerates of material and reminiscence.
Eight works have been created specifically for this space; seven of which, all of the same dimensions, align perfectly, marking the rhythm of an exasperated Lynchian symmetry. Like open windows into the mental “whims” of Ivan Seal, these nonsense apparatuses, repellent and distorted, order themselves while at the same time dissipating within the feeble and ritual notes of a looped composition composed by Leyland Kirby, aka The Caretaker, an experimental music project founded in 1996 and renowned for its investigations into the fields of memory and nostalgia. Renewing a previous collaboration, the unpublished song diffuses itself into the atmosphere from a small audio installation in the centre of the gallery, creating a flux wavering between colour and melancholia.
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Ivan Seal
Stockport, UK, 1973. Lives and works in Berlin
Selected Solo Exhibitions: 2016 Chevette in dub, RaebervonStenglin, Zürich; 2015 Ivan Seal, Carl Freedman Gallery, London; 2013, Ivan Seal, RaebervonStenglin, Zurich, Ivan Seal, Carl Freedman Gallery, London; 2012, In Here Stands It, Spike Island, Bristol; 2011, The Object Hurts The Space, RaebervonStenglin, Zurich, Ivan Seal, Carl Freedman Gallery, London, True As Applied To You, False As Applied To You, Krome Gallery, Berlin; 2010, I Learn By Osmosis, CEAAC, Strasbourg; 2009 Two Rooms For A Fall, West Germany, Berlin, You Talk Too Much, Visite Ma Tente , Berlin, Proximity, Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Berlin; 2008, Crack In Space, Julius Werner Galerie, Berlin, Confusion Is A Song By New Order, Kochstr 60, Berlin; 2007, Creature Of Havoc, Visite Ma Tente, Berlin, Kompact Living Space, with Carla Åhlander, Berlin.
The Caretaker
Stockport, UK, 1974.
Is a long-running project by electronic musician James Leyland Kirby. His work under the Caretaker moniker has been characterised as exploring memory, nostalgia, and melancholia. Initially the project was inspired by the haunted ballroom scene in the 1980 film The Shining, with his first several releases consisting of treated and manipulated samples of '30s ballroom pop recordings. His works have received critical acclaim in publications such as The Wire and BBC Music.