MUNTEAN/ROSENBLUM. The White Exploit

MUNTEAN/ROSENBLUM. The White Exploit
Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam
05.05.2018 - 16.06.2018

Galerie Ron Mandos is proud to present the exhibition The White Exploit by Muntean/Rosenblum. The artists mix ref- erences to art history and popular culture. By playing with visual codes from the past and the present, they scrutinise the power of images and how these constitute an overwhelming collective memory. The exhibition will comprise the duo’s distinctive large-scale paintings as well as paintings and drawings on a smaller scale. The White Exploit is derived from their eponymous new video installation (2018), which will also be shown.

Muntean/Rosenblum’s work mostly depicts groups of appar- ently lethargic or melancholic young people in idle situations, which are either ordinary and everyday or mysterious and ambiguous. The often dreamy scenes take place in rooms, public spaces or landscapes as if part of a lm, presenting unre- solved situations in the making. The characters seem to adopt postures copied from fashion magazines, or from paintings originating from the renaissance to the nineteenth century. Their work is often accompanied by captions or texts not directly relating to the depicted scene, thereby adding another layer of complexity.

Galerie Ron Mandos will show, among others, a selection of their newest series, with which the artists introduce paintings inspired by videos gone viral on YouTube. They explore the profound meaning of the online platform to today’s visual culture, as a space of contemporary iconography. In general, young people are omnipresent in Muntean/ Rosenblum’s work, resulting from the artists’ desire to faithfully capture their constant and overwhelm- ing appearance in mass media and social media. These are key areas in their ongoing theoretical and aesthetic re ection.

With their work Muntean/Rosenblum powerfully discuss various issues in a rational and balanced manner. However, the artists couple their visual contemplations to an identi cation with the present that can be chaotic and painful, in order to blur the boundaries between reason and imagination.

About the artist:
Muntean/Rosenblum consists of Markus Muntean (AT, 1962) and Adi Rosenblum (IL, 1962). They live and work in Vienna, and have collaborated since 1992. Their work has been exhibited widely in inter- national museums, institutions and galleries. Recent solo exhibitions were at MAC, Coruña (2018); MOCAK, Krakow (2018); Parkview Museum, Beijing (2017); Institut für zeitgenössische Kunst, Nürnberg (2014); and Tate Britain, London (2004). Group exhibitions they recently participated in were, among others, at Kunsthaus Graz (2018); Nam June Paik Art Centre, Gyeonggi-do (2018); The Parkview Museum, Singapore (2017); Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2016); and MAXXI, Rome (2016). Their work is in- cluded in both private and public collections, such as MoMA, NYC; the Burger Collection; and the Rubell Family Collection.