Shifting our eyes away from London for a moment, ZEIG HER, FÜHR VOR, TAUSCH EIN (Presence is the Artist) starts tonight with a talk at General Public from David Medalla.
Stitch in Time exhibit where visitors were invited to darn whatever they wished onto cotton sheets hung like hammocks in a room http://www.thecentreofattention.org
Developing David Medalla’s explorations of olfactory sculpture, participatory art, impromptus and ephemeral environments, The Aromatic Mandala is an impromptu talk taking place tonight at 7. Rooted from an early work, “Window of papiers d’armenie’” which he created in his room at no.17 rue des Canettes in Paris in 196l – it then developed to be his first biokinetic sculpture, “The Smoke Machine” in 1963 (Redfern Gallery, London), as well as an actualized olfactory environment through a “golden incense burner” in 1963, followed by an Impromptu that happened in 1990 at Times Square in New York City.
In collaboration with General Public, Discoteca Flaming Star and Johannes Paul Raether, the program kicks off ZEIG HER, FÜHR VOR, TAUSCH EIN, a three-day performaive exhibition/situation featuring performances and acts, alongside with images and objects, and will integrate discussion into presentations as a means of opening up a discursive space.
David Medalla constantly shifts his strategies and media; when one thinks one has him pinned down as a situationist, a surrealist, or a conceptualist, one is stumped as he continues to endlessly conceive other fantastic, often unrealisable schemes. Fairly unknown to the forefront, he is an icon of an artist who has made no clear distinction between his art and his life. David Medalla’s work stretches back to the sixties when he co-founded Signals Gallery in London and presented international kinetic art, among other art forms.
General Public is located at Schönhauser Allee 167c, 10435 Berlin
http://www.generalpublic.de/
