Synecdoche

Bourouina Gallery is pleased to present Synecdoche, a group show curated by Johannes Sperling.

The collage is one of the art forms most perfectly suited towards reflecting the present times: In an era where boundaries blur and the whole world is zapping, compiling and remixing it is not about deciding for one thing, but assembling from an endless pool of possibilities.

Synecdoche examines the question of what collage can constitute in 2011 and counterposes to the mediums most common present variations that are well-distributed by the persistence of a „retro-wave”. Beyond that, the exhibition is a search for the true heirs to the intellectual heritage of the pioneers of collage. Instead of a concrete definition this exhibition offers different approaches. Here the notion of collage is understood more as a basic practise and conceptual principle rather than any rigid or specific technique.

At times the attempt at overcoming the limitations posed by the pre-existence of appropriated material results in a broadening of the fundamental principles underlying the medium of collage, but it also gives rise to the combination of found material with newly created imagery. In some works, the big question concerning the sense and purpose of creating entirely new images before the backdrop of the aforementioned flood arises. But when some of the artists use historical imagery they are not interested in any comfortable journey through the past but much more in the impossibility of undertaking suchlike. The artists decide whether the focus of a given piece ought to be dedicated toward the common denominators or rather the differences between the individual components - whereby these elements can be homogeneously interlaced, or might be made to repel one another altogether. The compositions created often play with our natural tendencies toward wanting to define or locate all that we perceive of within an ordered system. In so doing, they allow us to conceive of what is already known to us in new ways. The exhibited works thus upset the perceptual systems of their beholders, forcing them to engage themselves with their environments and rethink established notions.

The artists in Synecdoche are unified by their examination on the complex interplay - the notion to which the exhibition owes its title - between the individual elements with the larger whole which they comprise. In their works, the concept of collage is further developed, advanced, scrutinized, and expanded; new forms of expression are investigated. Consistently the artists refrain from limiting themselves to working with paper, the working material more classically associated with collage, so that the exhibition is also comprised of painting, sculpture, photography, installation and slide projection.

As the artists have not been presented yet in this constellation, Synecdoche itself constitutes an entirely new whole, which promises to engender hidden and magical revelations. Indeed, it is more than likely to make the yet unseen become visible.

with: Tim Berresheim, 
Madeleine Boschan, 
Laura Bruce, Frauke Dannert, 
Peter Dobroschke, 
Mathew Hale = Alexander Voice, Eva Eun-Sil Han, 
Lothar Hempel, 
Jonathan Hernandez, Matthias Hesselbacher, 
Jakob Kolding, 
Zenita Komad, Hank Schmidt in der Beek, 
John Sparagana, 
Jacob Whibley.

Synecdoche
Kurator: Johannes Sperling

Künstler: Tim Berresheim, 
Madeleine Boschan, 
Laura Bruce, Frauke Dannert, 
Peter Dobroschke, 
Mathew Hale, Eva Eun-Sil Han, 
Lothar Hempel, 
Jonathan Hernandez, Matthias Hesselbacher, 
Jakob Kolding, 
Zenita Komad, Hank Schmidt in der Beek, 
John Sparagana, 
Jacob Whibley