Unclosed Stories

The exhibition is about some "possible stories", narrations that are present through traces, opened, suspended, unfinished... That open a space of interpretation for the viewers. It thus offers a multiplicity of glimpses into the personal and social spaces we inhabit and embraces an evocative and poetic approach of narratives.

Eva Marisaldi Born in 1966 in Bologna; lives & works in Bologna, Italy. Eva Marisaldi’s work is characterized by the use of a variety of techniques, including sculpture, embroidery, video installation and photography and focuses on the spectator’s attention, asks for a gaze and not a contemplation “tout court”; more than impositions, it involves the spectator’s sense of vision, some indications or captions are given as an advice, without eliminating the ambiguity, or breaking the enchantment. She transforms communication into mobile and fluid forms that are open and undefined; The “narration” is rarely developed, and this “missing part” is a ressource that leaves the viewer free to imagine what happened or what is going to happen, using his own memory and consciousness. The video animation Solo, 2002 is a “remake” of the movie Dressed To Kill by Brian de Palma, in which the protagonists are replaced by stones.

Kay Rosen Born in Corpus Christi, Texas; lives & works in Gary, Indiana, USA Rosen’s paintings reaffirm what is now common knowledge – that language is a loaded cultural construct which is never neutral, and is open to multiple readings. The interesting aspect of Rosen’s work is that she does not rely on ready-made meaning but rather brings apart the operation of language itself. The artist also successfully eliminates the barrier between herself and the viewer; Rosen’s work demands, in fact depends on, the active engagement of the viewer providing them with the opportunity to de-codify what initially appears as given. In her recent wall-paintings such as the one especially designed for the exhibition, Cedar Grove and Cypress Grove under Mediterranean Sky on Summer Nights (2,75 m x 5 m), the key to the stories, besides the paint names, are the words like "under," "over," "on top of," "beneath," "on" etc… They are the little narrative links, but they also establish the sequence of the layers of paint.

Eran Schaerf Born in 1962 in Tel Aviv; lives & works in Berlin. Eran Schaerf’s interventions are based on poetic experiments where there is no beginning and no end, there are, moreover, references, similarities and correspondences. He creates visual and verbal compositions in which some objects and materials prevail: fabrics, curtains, threads, paper, printed materials, video and sound, that reappear in different combinations and states of materialization. The artist uses the correspondence between objects and language in all its manifestations, from the spoken word and advertising to litterature; he combines materials, forms and words, that, in their very juxtaposition and association, reveal the process of constructing alternative meanings. His work is developping in this intervals, the simple arrangements or constellations function as moments, spaces of transition. (Bouquet, 2002, floor installation)

Janaina Tschape Born in Germany in 1973; lives & works in New York & Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Janaina Tschape’s sensitivity for stories, tales and legends has been intimately linked to her double nationality German and Brazilian. Thus through photography, video, drawing and installations, the artist develops a dream-like univers, in which her body is the instrument of all fantasy. In a very simple way and disregarding sophisticated effects, Janaïna Tschäpe creates different atmospheres using "home-made" accessories or references to the indigenous spiritual imagery. After having turned into a hybrid shape of a contemporary mermaid in a series entitled "he drowned in her eyes as she called him to follow", she is represented as an angel/demon in the series "Waiting Room", both shown at the Reina Sofia in Madrid in 2001. Moreover, Janaïna Tschäpe is transformed in a Nosferatu, haunting the cathedral of Reims during the show in the Frac of Champagne - Ardennes. The numerous transformations, the mass of lives she appropriates, brings to the fore her sculptural approach of photography and video, portraying not a dream world, but the sensation of being in one. (After the Rain, 4 photographs, 2003)

Show Room: Irini Karayannopoulou New Paintings Born in 1973 in Thessaloniki; lives & works in Athens As a painter, Irini Karayannopoulou defines a kind of ritualistic process, a self-constricting protocol, in which she works intensively, obsessionaly, until exhaustion, both of the subject and of her own energy: hundred of self-portraits, series of small-size canvas (bulldozers, trucks as well as reproductions of classic masters, black&white drawings of prolific dwarfs…) The recurrent element in these propaedeutical works is the opposition she sets between the subject chosen and its representation in terms of scale or medium, so inappropriate to the goal. what is left since the painting is denounced as soon as enounced? Her recent works in view in the show room have to be perceived as parts of a kind of mosaic: intervals, fragmented moments in which nothing is really defined but already lost: black fireworks, rose or green skies, impossible landscapes… Irini Karayannopoulou doesn’t try to depict a scene or an atmosphere, moreover her work is a game-like strategy, an ephemeral state in mutation, in suspension between reality and imagination.

Unclosed Stories
Eva Marisaldi, Kay Rosen, Eran Schaerf, Janaina Tschäpe
Show room: Irini Karayannopoulou