You, Press Release, are hereby cordially invited to a most disturbing exhibition of works by Rollin Beamish and Nao Nishihara, at the Greusslich Contemporary Gallery. A deeply droning root note, produced by two vibrating automobile hoods, and supplemented respectively by the sharply pulsating staccato of a small lumbering instrument and the clangor of small bells, produce a resulting sound as though a manic procession were taking place. Simultaneously, drawings of body parts are displayed, which were detached either during, or directly after the murder of the depicted persons, and which were then arranged in public spaces. This practice is resurgent in Mexico and is used by competing organizations (cartels) in order to reciprocally demonstrate terror and reprisal.
This close dialog of two critical artistic positions, which together function both on the immediate level of sound as well as on an intellectual level, enables the exhibition to operate on the edge of reasonability. The gallery apologizes emphatically to visitors for this unpleasant encounter, but supports all the more the curatorial concept on the grounds of its societal relevance and contemporary importance.
Rollin Beamish shows a wall-filling installation of his newest series of masterful freehand drawings of severed body parts. Beamish posits questions about personhood. His varied syntactical arrangements, especially of his idiosyncratic portraits generated in recent years, always refer to these hidden questions which inwardly provoke the artist. Both the precise portrayal of the mind and mood of the characters lead to this thesis, as also does the fact that these persons, cut from their contexts dealing with contemporary political, philosophical, literary, and socially relevant life, personify topics like oppression, violence, lies and the misuse of power, but also self-determination, responsibility, love and utopia.
Beamish remarks, that his processes of thinking and selection are actually more difficult than the conversion into complex, technically built drawings, which, alongside discussions with regard to various currents in realism (i.e. classical or academic realism, new objectivity, photo-, hyper-, or surrealism) also moves his work into the spotlight of a conceptual viewing.
Body parts torn asunder, as a realistic allegory for the pain of the innocent (and guilty), is impressively palpable and demands the bequeathal of the intrinsic questions posed by the artist to humankind for further research; questions which open up especially in combination with his wider oeuvre. In contrast to this form of expression stands the immediate medium of Nao Nishihara, a Japanese sound artist. Likewise with him stand in the forefront of his sound objects complex compositional decisions with regard to sound quality, materiality, context, the viewer, the performance and the production of tone in regards to time, pulse, rhythm, speed, accident, repetition and motif.
Nishihara installs 4 sound sculptures which automatically produce sounds. Two of his wood constructions, referred to by him as "Brace Apes" wander through the room on a stretched cord, and beat a rhythm. Two rotating automobile hoods vibrate dully, resting upon abradant rubber balls.
Nishihara's works always bear many questions about the visualised, automated analog - and partly site-specific - production of sound, as well as the meaning of sound-scapes and sound sculpture in visual art. In this context, the automobile hoods transformed into instruments, together with their groaning, accusatory sound, effuse an apocalyptic mood, critical of consumer culture. With its accompanists, the so-called "Brace Apes", this absurd orchestra produces a trance-like tapestry of sound, with associations of dark, subliminal messages, spiritual extremism or a zombie-like compulsion toward repetition.
Internally and with humankind more broadly, Nishihara's sound and Beamish's installation are capable of evoking intense debate, or alternately can provoke lethargic social withdrawal or abrupt flight.
Lecture: Sat. 04.07.2015, 8 pm: “The Fascination of Medusa” Gorgonic Contemplations by Christian Breuer “To decapitate is synonymous with to castrate. The terror of the Medusa is thus a terror of castration, […] becoming stiff means an erection […].” (Freud: “Medusa’s Head”, in: International Journal of Psychoanalysis, ed. by James Strachey, No. 22 [1941], p. 69
On the occasion of the exposition “abyssal” and based on Rollin Beamish’s iconography of the Medusa there will be a short lecture about the fascination and significance of Gorgo followed by a talk with the artist. The lecture will be held in German.
Christian Breuer lives and works as a translator and musician in Berlin. In 2014 he obtained his Ph.D. with Prof. Macho at the Institute for Cultural Studies at Humboldt University Berlin with his thesis „Und wo blicke können tödten…“ – Der Malocchio als begehrlicher Augen/Blick, which will be published in autumn 2015 by Kulturverlag Kadmos Berlin.
Rollin Beamish (*1977, Ohio, USA) equipped with a grant from the renowned Fulbright Commission, lived and worked in Berlin in 2005/06, where he has since continued to stay part time. Since 2006, he has taught at the Montana State University in Bozeman, MT, where he is Associate Professor of Painting and Drawing. Since 2013, he has been a PhD candidate in Media and Communication at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee Switzerland. In 2004 he completed his MFA at the Ohio University in Athens, OH, majoring in painting. In 2000 he completed his BFA at the Cleveland Institute of Art, in Cleveland, Ohio, also majoring in painting.
Noa Nashihara (* 1976, Hiroshima, Japan) He grew up in Kyoto and Ube in Yamaguchi. In 1998, he left Tokyo University of Foreign Studies before graduating. In 2009, he graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, with a degree in Musical Creativity and the Environment. In 2011, he obtained a master’s degree in Intermedia Art from Tokyo University of the Arts.
Nao Nishihara works with sound. To experience a great amount of sounds, Nishihara undertakes activities of: installation, sound study, study/documentation of foghorns, field-based recordings, sound for dance, and instrument production/repair. His activity contains solo exhibitions such as: “耳のみち Reise der Ohren”(2015, Bethanien Berlin), “音と物 Sound and Object”(2014, Ayumi-Gallery Tokyo), “UNDER35 GALLERY”(2011,‘Shin-Minatomura’ of Yokohama Triennale), “音のつえ Deaf Cane”(2011, explosion-tokyo), group exhibitions as: Unknown Nature No.5 (2014, Ayumi Gallery), Noge Jazz de Bon-Odori 2014 (2014, Noge-Honcho-street, Yokohama), Nuit de la philo – objets, choses, corps (2013, Institut Francais Tokyo), performances as: “FATAL ERROR: der Einzige” with Benjamin Efrati (2014, Stollestr 33 Dresden Germany), Performance with “MIRACLE” (2014, Beaux-Arts de Paris), Shimizu Kanji Karada-wa-Korekarada、direction by Tanaka Min” (2014, plan-B Tokyo), Setouchi Art Festival 2013 (2013/8/17、Uno Port Okayama). He has worked with Kazue Sawai, Min Tanaka, Keiji Haino and lots of friends. He translated the book Sound Art (Film Art Inc., 2010) along with Kazue Kobata and Hiroshi Egaitsu.
http://nishiharanao.blogspot.jp

Rollin Beamish

Vernissage: Sat. 30.05.2015, 18–21
Finissage: Sat. 11.07.2015, 18–21

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