Dove Bradshaw at Thomas Rehbein Galerie

Did you hear the one about the goose who laid the golden egg? It never ceases to amaze that some objects are so indelibly intertwined with a concept, an ideology, or a story that any use of their form is seen as either working with, or directly attempting to subvert, that dominant association. Much like that philosophical question about the chicken and the egg, however, Dove Bradshaw’s series of 18k gold broken egg shells Nothing gives no clear answer, but opens up a rather zen-like opportunity for contemplation. This, it seems, was exactly her intention, to conjure Buddhist ideas of form as emptiness and emptiness as form. Thomas McEvilley summarizes it quite well: “First there’s the possibility of nothing, meaning it’s possible that there would be nothing; then there’s the possibility of nothing, meaning the world of potentiality comes out of nothing.”

Not quite feeling up to an existential mental workout? You can leave all that to the side if you like, too, and simply enjoy Bradshaw’s works for their elegant beauty. Sure, it’s a little like going to a yoga class because you like the way it makes your mid-section look, but there’s nothing really wrong with that either. Other works aside from the Nothing series focus on the forces of nature and how they can effect changes in materials over time with Waterstone 2011 (pictured directly below) being a perfect example. As the water slowly drips onto the sandstone below, it changes the stone and completes the work. Water, salt, and stone do seem to be Bradshaw’s favorite materials, but acetone, mercury and sulfur also figure prominently in the creation of pieces like Contingency Pour I, 2006 (pictured far below), which is being displayed as a photograph of how it appeared in February 2010. Returning now, if just briefly, to that famous chicken/egg mind-twister: Bradshaw’s work is perhaps best approached as an unanswerable question; a clear answer, or finished product, is never the goal, but rather the evolution and process of arriving at the point you find yourself in the present.

The exhibition was just extended, so you can still catch it until the 31^st of August at Thomas Rehbein Galerie. While you’re Cologne, find yourself in the present at The New Yorker Hotel, as chosen by White Line Hotels.

Images www.rehbein-galerie.de

JANNIS KOUNELLIS AT KEWENIG GALERIE

If you’ve ever opened a book on the history of modern art, you’ve seen the pictures: naked women covered in paint pressing their bodies against paper. The artist behind this was Yves Klein and he called this type of work Anthropometry, turning people into living brushes to apply his patented paint International Klein Blue, or IKB.

Now that you’re refamiliarized with Klein’s work, let’s start by saying that this is not what Jannis Kounellis has done in his new exhibition at Kewenig Galerie in Cologne, but that emphatic not could hardly be understood without remembering how fine the line is between it and saying, instead, this is exactly what Jannis Kounellis has done in his new exhibition at Kewenig Galerie in Cologne. Rather than bodies, Kounellis has used items of clothing covered in black paint and then pressed them against human-sized metal sheets covered in canvas. It would seem that the human-sizing is the only evidence of a human presence in the room at all.

This is where the line between the not and the exactly gets even finer. Klein’s Anthropometry works were about the living experience of the paint being applied to the surface and the very evidently human traces that they left; the shapes of breasts, stomachs, and legs are unmistakable. Everything in Klein’s works is about that human presence. Despite first appearances, so is Kounellis’. Kounellis proves presence, however, though absence by using the clothes we use to cover our skin rather than the skin itself. When a shape becomes recognizable, like a jeans pocket, it no longer speaks for itself as a piece of clothing, but for the body we feel should be underneath of it. Exactly like the distance between skin and clothing, Kounllis makes us dig a little deeper to get at the flesh of his new works, but taking the time to unveil the presence behind them won’t disappoint.

Are you tired of hotels that seem devoid of life? At White Line Hotels edit The New Yorker Hotel human traces are more than evident.

Images: Kewenig Galerie at www.artnet.de

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Categories: Cologne, Art, Culture, Exhibitions

Contributing writer: Melissa Frost

Tobias Grewe: as I’ve seen it …

Last week I was handed a promotional magazine for a professional photography shop on the street. I was with my stepdaughter, who like a lot of teenage girls is crazy about taking pictures and so young that the digital format is the only one she really has experience with. On the back cover of that magazine was a camera ad with a pretty standard shot of some fruit, perfectly shiny and looking too good to even eat. After making a comment about photo “enhancement”, I realized that not only is digital a teenagers automatic first thought when they hear photography, but that every advertising image we see is somehow enhanced doesn’t really register. This is not to say that anything was different when I was her age or that we were smarter about advertising’s tricks. If anything, I was more naïve; I wasn’t adding effects to photos on a mobile phone at the age of 10. My only point, if reached somewhat indirectly, is that now just about anyone could add some extra shine and “juiciness” to some fruit in a photo after it’s taken. Before there was a whole industry behind spraying the fruit with different kinds of plastics to make it look like that before a photo was even taken.

This is not to compare Tobias Grewe to current or to now-antiquated advertising photography techniques. As an artist his interests lay in the more painterly debates of form, color, and light and corresponding to those painterly interests, his techniques for achieving the image in photography are decidedly more “handmade”. The images resemble the digitally enhanced images we gaze past on a daily basis, but are produced without additional lighting, filters, or even a tripod (and no post-production digital enhancement either, in case you were wondering). Instead, extreme perspectives and over-lighting are some of the techniques used to turn architectural elements into constructivist forms reminiscent of Malevich and Klee. Grewe challenges you to look past what is comfortable and routine and to take pleasure in active perception.

Check out the exhibition at The New Yorker Hotel. While you won’t even have to leave the hotel to see something of the art scene Cologne is famous for, if you’re inspired to see more, White Line Hotels edit The New York Hotel is the perfect base to begin and end your explorations of Cologne’s cultural scene.

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Categories: Cologne, Art

Contributing writer: Melissa Frost

The New Yorker Goes Live

Taking a trip to Cologne, but don’t know where to stay or what to do? The New Yorker, and their newly launched website will take care of all of that. After all, who’s more likely to know what’s happening in the city than the people in the middle of it all?

A local calendar of events connects you to the multitude of fairs, cultural events, and what’s on at the hotel. It also gives you access to all the spaces that The New Yorker has to offer. From weddings to get-together BBQ’s, it’s all there. You can choose between sipping whisky in the lounge, reading the morning paper in the library, or taking tea in their refreshing green garden. White Line Hotels edit The New Yorker prides itself on their individuality and human touch, and is and original approach to the contemporary hotel.

Bonus tip: don’t miss actress Maria Lerner’s reading of Heike Hoyers comic novel “Das TAO des Hamsters” (The TAO of the Hamster), on February 25^th!

Click through the site and plan a visit: www.thenewyorker.de

Bewegung im Raum

The New Yorker Hotel, Cologne

Member of the White Line family – The New Yorker Hotel, continues its series of in-house readings and exhibitions this month with Bewegung im Raum, Through a combination of works presented by Galerie Claudia Junig that utilize light, video, performance and drawing as their mediums, the exhibition examines how elegance and calculated strategy can expose the opposing elements of dignity and banality that exist in the complexities of modern life.

Opposites always create fodder for discussion; you only have to think as far the optimist/pessimist dilemma of the half-full glass for inspiration. They can also create comedy, and in keeping to the idea of opposites, they can create drama as well. Bewegung im Raum (Movement in Space) invites its viewers to move through the grey spaces between the extremes of dignity and banality. With those terms defining the “black” and “white”, you’re sure to find some comedy, drama, and certainly something to discuss in the grey areas.

While details of the works are staying under wraps until the opening, the artists include Benita Liebel, Christiane de la Garenne, Xandra Herdickerhoff and Lichtfaktor.

Bewegung im Raum opens on the 27^th of November at 6pm. The New Yorker Hotel, Deutz-Muelheimer-Strasse 204, 51063 Cologne, Germany.

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Categories: Cologne, Art, Events