art berlin20.09.2018–23.09.2018ART N MORE
For the 2018 edition of Art Berlin Sperling is showing a presentantion of new works by the Leipzig based artist duo ART N MORE. Sperling will show three large scale painting and text diptychs that continue the series of works the duo developed for their current solo exhibition at the gallery. As in the past ART N MORE (Paul Bowler and Georg Weißbach) make use of popular visual imagery, however this time radically reduced. The artist no longer reference the diverse image world of advertising. Instead, they pick one creature from popular culture: THE DINOSAUR.
In the large-format paintings, ART N MORE illustrate the story of a new world, whose protagonist – the dinosaur – is depicted in all its shapes and forms. The paintings are illustrated by smart-aleck Latin quotes of different origin, with statements such as “De omnibus dubitandum“ (Doubt all) or “Gaudeamus igitur“ (Let us rejoice), which sound like commandments or invocations from this new world.
The extinct dinosaurs and dead Latin language have more long-gone and forgotten-time connotations than anything else. The temporal dimensions seem shifted and throw up questions surrounding man’s self-conception, cultural history and art.
The fact that dinosaurs are extinct and that only part-finds of fossils exist, nurtures the fascination and immense subsequent image production and visual assemblage of their image. As only an idea of the appearance of dinosaurs exists, the imaginations of scientists and artists, as well as children, go rampant wild.
The dinosaurs are the ideal cultural object and symbol to be loaded up with a myriad of meanings and take on countless manifestations. In these pictorial depictions, such as in films of dinosaurs, we can find highly cultural contextual values, wishes and fears of society. The image of the dinosaur is therefore an especially assembled image, which can hardly be topped in its artificiality. ART N MORE carry these constructions to the extreme by building their vision of a new world from an array of different found dinosaur images and objects. These constructs also acquire a pseudo-legitimation through the application of the Latin quotes, which convey an historical aspect, whilst also summoning one.
The extinct creatures together with the text, make the absurdity of historicity and its inherent constructed nature clear – which in addition is also always time-dependent. Especially the cultural image of the dinosaur, in its assemblage, is ideal for questioning visual depictions and subsequent truth content.
ART N MORE repeatedly play with the expectations of art. By referencing eclectically different image worlds in their work and expanding on numerous epochs of history, the artists release themselves from all expectations and create a freedom of working, which allows for anything and is therefore, so radical in its nature.
As is often the case with ART N MORE, the viewer asks him/herself: “Is this meant seriously or are they taking the piss?“ In their humorous, as well as critical work, ART NMORE question art and art production itself. Where does art start and where does it end? And: Is there even a border?
