| Event Description |
UC San Diego’s University Art Gallery Presents Hans Weigand: Deep Water Horizon
1 October > 27 November 2010
Opening Reception 30 September 2010 5:00-8:00pm
Tuesday > Saturday 11am > 5pm FREE ADMISSION
The UC San Diego University Art Gallery will host Deep Water Horizon, Hans Weigand's second solo exhibition in the U.S. after his acclaimed debut at the Portland Landmark, Gallery. The exhibit will run from October 1 - November 27 with an opening reception on Thursday September 30 from 5:00-8:00pm.
Deep Water Horizon is inspired by the fictitious and dystopian landscape of the California Coastline, on which the artist projects all sorts of ambivalent fall-out from the last 30 years of popular culture.Weigand will present eight large-scale multilayered canvases in an octagonal shape. This fractured panoramic seascape is held together by a continuous, distant horizon, which is also a kind of dividing line between what's on top of this huge wave and what has long been submerged. In this sense, Deep Water Horizon is not only in dialogue with the recent offshore catastrophe but also hints at the archival burden confronted in the age of digital mass memory.
Having worked with large-scale multimedia collages for the last two decades, Weigand has adopted a 3-step process for the production of his canvases. The backdrop of each panel on display is provided by painting, mostly abstract images of nocturnal and day-time "atmospheres" characterized by different light parameters. Printed on these backdrops are large, computer-generated montages of photographic elements, primarily of seascapes shot at various locations in California and Hawaii. Another layer of these collage works engages with bizarre architectural and environmental details found in Las Vegas or in the hinterlands of U.S. vernacular culture. Above this tidal wave of trashy and flashy imagery, the lonely figure of the surfer, in large part modeled on the Comics character of the Silver Surfer, is enthroned in perfect isolation as if he or she were the last one standing amidst the catastrophic debris of a contemporary media storm. The third, and final, layer consists of another surface of hand-painted accentuations that act as smears across the hygienic aesthetics of digital production.
The exhibit also features two supplementary components to the fundamental eight panels presented in Deep Water Horizon. The first is a sequence of simple images that incorporates partly legible words that are set back to back with the canvases and positioned to welcome the viewers. Finally, there is an accompanying series of straightforward photographs, selected views of Americana that Weigand has collected in the course of his frequent visits to the U.S. over the past decade. Serious and profoundly humorous at the same time, this piecemeal accumulation of a panoramic counter-spectacle takes on the notion of a "deep water horizon"-embedded somewhere in the depths of our personal archives.
About the Artist:
Hans Weigand, born 1954 in Hall in Tirol, lives and works in Vienna and Berlin. Numerous international solo- and group exhibitions in Europe and the USA.
(selection) Generali Foundation, Vienna (1990); SAT, MAK, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Villa Arson, Nice (1997); Life Boat (with Raymond Pettibon and Jason Rhoads) MAK Schindler House, Los Angeles 1999; Cotton 2001, Secession, Vienna (2001); Jerry Cotton 2002, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2002); Serious Play / Metaphorical Gestures, Austrian Cultural Forum , New York (2003); Before and after the final judgement, Gemäldegalerie at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Vienna (2003) PICA_Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland / USA (2005); Hans Weigand - Von hier nach dort, Neue Galerie Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz (2005); Galerie Ascan Crone, Andreas Osarek, Berlin (2006); Galerie Gabriele Senn, Vienna (2007); Panorama, Galerie im Taxispalais and Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck; Kunsthaus Zug, Zug (2009). Vortex, MAK im Fokus, Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna (2010)
COTTON 2001 / 2010 (video):
Has been staged by Hans Weigand as a crime story in an artistic milieu. The work in progress which comes about in phases, was first shown in 2001 in the Wiener Secession. Further episodes took place in Cologne, Los Angeles, Portland, New York, Tihuana etc. Along with the Jerry Cotton dimenovel series, Stanley Kubrick's film classic 2001: A Space Odyssey was the point of convergence for the artistic investigation of media transmitted, utopian fictional worlds as conceived in the Sixties. The site of the exhibition is taken in account, thus personal friends and artists are incorporated into the story at the film location and take part as actors.
In the Viennese version, for example, the host of the Paris Bar in Berlin is Michel Würthle; the New York gallerist Colin de Land and the artist Raymond Pettibon can be seen in other roles. In the Cologne sequence that has been integrated, the artists Georg Herold, Cosima von Bonin, among others act out the scenes. The star of the story is the curator Stefan Bidner in the leading role of the cool killer, Nitch, who is on the trail of Jerry Cotton. To be continued 2010 in Los Angeles and La Jolla.
Relevant Programming, Film Screenings of COTTON 2001/2010:
October 3, 7:00pm: Mandrake, Los Angeles with discussion to follow with Juli Carson and Hans Weigand
October 4, 6:00pm: UC San Diego Visual Arts Facility Performing Space, La Jolla with discussion to follow with Juli Carson and Hans Weigand
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