Michele Di Menna
The Shape Of Things To Come
Art Basel 41 – Art Statements
Hall 1.0, booth S 25
MICHELE DI MENNA “THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME”
Performance, sculpture, text, collage, video and sound installation circle around each other in the art of Michele Di Menna, coming together to form possible worlds within themselves, worlds in which the artist remains in the role of the sole protagonist – like a conductor of the shape of things to come. It is through the ephemerality of Michele Di Menna’s performances, during which all these components are employed, that one complete picture is constructed.
For Art Statements, Michele Di Menna turns toward the dynamic in her working process, bundling the ephemerality of her performative work, transforming it into a manifold and solid installation. Like in H.G. Wells novel of the same title, Michele Di Menna, revisits for “The Shape of Things to Come” her past projects, reworking and restaging them in new combinations and forms. This return to her own works is a tracing of tendencies and reverberating ideas, a finding process of the shapes that stay and the forms that fade over time. Her work displayed at the Galerie Kamm booth becomes a momentarily tableau, a space that enables the viewer to have an insight into the missed performances and the pieces that remain from her activities. Finally, Michele Di Menna commemorates her own artistic production with a wink, undertaking a search for continuity with the possibility of movement at the same time.
For her installation at Art Basel Statements, Michele Di Menna transforms for example her collage “Guest House” into a video in which the artist carries a costume in the shape of a building while walking through the woods. Bricks from her installation “Malleability Masons” are used to produce a sound piece. The performance “A Rise and Fall Performed by Hands” transforms into a papier-mâché sculpture in the form of four conjoined hands, and her wooden sculpture from “These Eels are Electric!!!” becomes a series of collages that meander-like capture the wall. Michele Di Menna will also use program booklets from former exhibitions, reworking them into a new form of accompanying publication for her installation at Art Statements.
In “The Shape of Things to Come”, Michele Di Menna constructs a tableau that can be seen as a possibility rather than fact – one of many realities of things past, present and future. She calls into question the possibility of a fixed perspective, or a fixed documentation, highlighting ephemerality and fluidity in her work.
MICHELE DI MENNA, born 1980 in Vancouver, studied from 2005-2010 at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and currently lives and works in Berlin.
She will have a solo exhibition in Pro Choice, Vienna this year. Recent solo exhibitions include “Precarious Positions in Transition”, SMS exhibition series at MARTa Herford, “Inszenierung” at Kunstverein Nürnberg , both 2009, and “Because I Must” at Center, Berlin in 2008.
She is currently showing in the group exhibition “Bilder in Bewegung – Künstler & Video / Film 1958 – 2010″ at Museum Ludwig, Cologne. Recent group shows include “The Perpetual Dialogue” at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, “Das Gespinst. Die Sammlung Schürmann zu Gast im Museum Abteiberg” at Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach and “Kehraus – Abschied von stabilen Wänden” at Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, all 2009. In 2008 she was part of “The Great Transformation, Art and Tactical Magic” at MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo and at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main. In the last few years she did performances at Caribic Residency, Hamburg, IMO, Copenhagen, GAK, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster and Caribic Residency, Frankfurt am Main. She also performed at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Flaca, London and Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main.
Furthermore we are happy to announce the following exhibitions in Basel:
AGNIESZKA BRZEZANSKA “COSMIC EQUATION” (S)
Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel
18 May – 4 July 2010
www.kunsthausbaselland.ch
KATHRIN SONNTAG “SWISS ART AWARDS 10″ (G)
Messe Basel, Hall 3.2
15 – 20 June 2010
Upcoming gallery exhibitions during Berlin Biennial 2010:
SIMON DYBBROE MØLLER FAST FLICKERING “BLACK BUGS ON A COOL WHITE BACKGROUND”
JOÃO MARIA GUSMÃO + PEDRO PAIVA “HAND SMALLER THAN HAND”
Opening 11 June 2010, 4pm – 10pm
12 June – 31 July 2010
Please contact the gallery for further information.
GALERIE KAMM
ROSA-LUXEMBURG-STR. 45
D – 10178 BERLIN
T/F +49 (0)30 28386464
M +49 (0)175 5900655
INFO [at] GALERIEKAMM.DE
WWW.GALERIEKAMM.DE
Above image:
Michele Di Menna
“A Frozen Heavy Handed Drama”, 2010
Paper-mâché, wood, chicken wire, zip tie, spray paint
106 x 91 x 60 cm
Courtesy Galerie Kamm, Berlin
Photo: Jens Ziehe
