Galeria Fortes Vilaça is pleased to present Incarnation São Paulo, a new exhibition by celebrated British artist Cerith Wyn Evans. In his second solo exhibition at the gallery, two sculptures of technological vein propose an intense sensorial experience in counterpoint with a third piece composed of plants in movement. A 30 minutes video complements the exhibition.
Since the 1990s, Wyn Evans has been focusing his production on works that question the nature of written and visual language with clear-cut conceptual accuracy. His installations can be seen as repositories of meanings arising from different sources, reassembled as to reveal many discursive paths. An ongoing dialog with the works of great artists from past is established, with a direct reference or using their very works with a new approach revealing a wish to keep their ideas at play. His refined esthetics is nearly always influenced by a deep interest in the history of cinema and literature.
Flute Piece Incarnation is a sculpture composed of five glass flutes designed by the artist. He has composed an abstract track made up of sounds mechanically delivered by a pipe organ compressor integrated into the sculpture. Permeating the space, the sounds contrast with the immateriality suggested by the object’s transparency. Columns (Assemblage) IX is a sculpture that unfolds from the deconstruction of a perfect column of light, of minimalist inspiration, made with old fluorescent tubes. Like the sounds, the warmth radiated by the light has a strong physical presence in space. The third sculpture is made of three different plants placed on revolving platforms that move very slowly. The piece adds an organic, earthy element to the exhibition, by highlighting sculptural delicacy and elegance in an object of perennial nature.
The video The sky is thin as paper here…, that has it’s titled taken from a sentence by William Burroughs, also navigates the thin line between the immaterial and the physical worlds. This silent black and white projection casts a judicious selection of scenes from Japanese celebrations in which the human body is intensely present. Images of a range of night skies are superposed to those ritual scenes in a slow and hypnotic motion that gradually creates a subjective narrative.
Cerith Wyn Evans was born in Wales, and currently lives and works in London. His participations in collective exhibitions include the Venice Biennial (1995, 2003, and 2009), Yokohama Triennale (2008), the Aichi Triennale (2010), the 9th Istambul International Biennial (2005), and the 11th Kassel Documenta (2002). His more recent individual exhibitions include the Bergen Kunsthall (2011), the Tramway, in Glasgow (2009), the Inverleith House, in Edinburgh (2009), the MUSAC, in León (2008), the ICA, in London (2006), the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2006), the Kunsthaus Graz (2005), the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (2004), and the Frankfurter Kunstverein, [2004].
