Archive
2022
KubaParis
Burn the Groves
Location
LöwengasseDate
10.02 –25.03.2022Curator
Tobias Hohn & Yvo ChoPhotography
Oskar LeeSubheadline
All artists names: House of Haha, Jorge Loureiro, Simone Nieweg, Angharad Williams, Anna R. Winder, Julija Zaharijević The exhibition 'Burn the Groves' brings together artists who write and make books as part of their practice. Inspired by Seth Price's text 'Burn the Groves', the exhibition relates the library and the garden as different spaces of cultivation - complicated by the fact that the exhibition takes place in a commercial gallery. The exhibition unfolds in three parts: Artworks are exhibited in the gallery space and office of Löwengasse. For the duration of the exhibition, the gallery office also functions as a library. Visitors are invited to spend time with books selected by the artists. Towards the end of the exhibition, a publication will be released with contributions by the artists and other accomplices. Most of the contributions have been commissioned for 'Burn the Groves'. House of Haha is a collaboration between the artists Victoria Colmegna (*1986 Argentina) and Bonny Poon (*1987 Canada). House of Haha's debut outing was the exhibition 'Too Close To Home' at Shore Gallery, Vienna in 2021. Jorge Loureiro (* 1991 Brazil) lives and works in Düsseldorf. Simone Nieweg (*1962 Germany) lives and works in Düsseldorf. Her works were shown as part of the exhibition 'Opening the Space. Works from the Collection in the Light of Current Issues' at K20, Düsseldorf. Simone's most recent monographic publication 'Der Wald, die Baume, das Licht' was published by Schirmer/ Mosel Verlag, Munich in 2016. Currently, her works are also on view at Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur, Cologne and K21, Düsseldorf. Angharad Williams (*1986 Wales) lives and works in Berlin. She has recently shown in 'The Wig' at D R E I in Mönchengladbach and will have an exhibition at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf later this year. She also co-runs The Wig, an artist-run exhibition space in Berlin. Anna R. Winder (*1995 Denmark) lives and works in Düsseldorf and Berlin. In 2021, she took part in 'Taking my Thoughts for a Walk' at Dortmunder Kunstverein and 'Out here in the wild oats amid the alien corn' at Lantzsch'er Skulpturen Park, Düsseldorf. Anna is a member of b_books in Berlin and co-edits Wormhole newspaper. Julija Zaharijević (* 1991 Serbia) lives and works in Vienna and Berlin. Two of her recent exhibitions include 'Oh no! The View' at Georg Kargl PERMANENT, Vienna and 'Silver Lane' at Alienze, Vienna, both in 2021.Text
Burn the Groves
We have based all of this on an older structure that was hoisted
On four posts. It’s actually the strongest kind of structure. What?
Oh for sure, far stronger than a tripod:
Law, finance, medicine, real estate.
What be this hellish matrix, exactly?
Everything must be allowed to be itself, of course,
But only in terms of quantification.
Cicero said, if you have a garden and a library
You have everything you need. You cultivate an appreciation
For the achievements of the past,
Steep yourself in the archive of human accomplishment,
And also cultivate living stupid things with your own hand
Pledging your soul to messy and transient beauty.
That might have suited the ancients, sure. Today, tho,
Things are more complicated. The business mindset says:
Cicero = on to something
But if a garden is good… And a library is good…
How do we make it even better?
Take it to the next level:
Encapsulate garden and library in a single structure
Reduce the variety, compress the symbol.
So, this could mean a few things. Maybe you construct
A diminutive library structure within a walled garden,
A place to peruse the achievements, a plastic girl’s hand mirror
Held up to reflect ideal western culture:
The classical research university model, seen
Throughout our glistening twentieth century, also
Manicured tech company campuses, business parks,
And so forth.
However, the reverse is potentially cooler: a garden inside a library.
Not simply a bed of flowers or a potted fig in a lobby,
Nothing like that, rather,
Splice the concepts. Insist they inhabit the same coordinates.
Call it the new science of Galibardrenry (micro Old French vibe,
or, we can also potentially tweak this to your likeness?)
Moss on the books, vines toss them shelves
Roots swole the floors,
Fractured your pavers.
Like best-loved images we know already, scanning
From the inner eye: it’s Gaia reasserting herself
In the post-apocalyptic city,
One form of cultivation running riot within another,
A perfect summation of Cicero’s vision, because also a perversion.
Break the circuits,
Burn the groves
Do not transcend,
Cannibalize.
Seth Price
Seth Price