Art For Modern Architecture LA Times MJ - Death of Michael Jackson
2010
Seeing Marine Hugonnier's works, exhibited by Max Wigram Gallery, I was initially attracted to the vibrancy of the colors and collage-like rendering of her pieces. Reading further, I found Hugonnier's ideas about "the image" and how she responds to images in media interesting.
The colors that first attracted me to the pieces are actually used as a coverup, in reality obstructing the true image,which to me seems like paradox - the coverup makes me want to look more, not less. I wondered if this is her purpose or a bypass of her work...
The press release from Max Wigram Gallery eloquently states interpretations of her works and describes her process:
Marine Hugonnier’s work is about the nature of images and
the history, culture and politics that are associated with them. As Christian Rattemeyer writes in her
recently published JRP Ringier monograph: "Marine Hugonnier has
persistently investigated the role of the image, its abilities and its
limitations. For Hugonnier, what is referred to as the image is not just the
visual representation of an object, a landscape, or a person, but the vortex of
a network of power relations, historic conventions, political ambitions, and
aesthetic force. More importantly, for Hugonnier the image always carries the
promise of an excess of meaning, a resistance to its subjection to a purpose of
commerce, propaganda, and ideology—in short the spectacle. Her work is to rescue
the image; sometimes from itself, sometimes for itself, but most often from the
multiple forces that enact upon it a battle for dominance."
The works on paper presented in this exhibition continue to
deal with the obstruction of the image, holding back information in order to
question it. The Art for Modern
Architecture series consists of the front pages of The New York Times that
report on the fall of Communism in 1991.
The newspaper images have been concealed by silk-screen cut outs, so
that we have to draw on our own memories of the events to fill in the gaps.
In these works, the monochromatic paper is cut, rounded and
inflated to create intensely pigmented but subtle sculptural objects. These
shapes are a response to the artist’s intimate thoughts and emotions and relate
to the feelings that recent news events have provoked in her. Formally, however,
there is a clear nod to modernism and Hugonnier conceives this body of work as
a negative homage to the loss of modernism’s utopian aspirations and
progressive thoughts. In this sense, they are ‘revisions’ of those values and a
challenge to re-think them in postmodern times. As is usual with Hugonnier’s
work, the immediacy and formal power make the initial, intense impact. It is only when we look closer that we
discover layers of meaning that lend a deeper poignancy to these apparently
simple pieces.
Art For Modern Architecture GBW Guardian Fall of the Berlin Wall
2010
Modele 28 (Revision) (Large)
2010
