Galerie Barbara Wien is delighted to announce its participation in the inaugural edition of Paris+ par Art Basel. We will be presenting works by Nina Canell, Robert Filliou, Ian Kiaer, Walter Price, Michael Rakowitz, and Haegue Yang.
The gallery will show paper collages by Haegue Yang (*1971) from her new series Mesmerizing Mesh made of Hanji (traditional Korean paper), alongside a suspended Lantern Sculpture, Mesmerizing Lantern – Four Guardians in Crimson Mesh (2022), made from the same material. Hanji is made from the inner bark of mulberry trees native to Korea's mountainsides. The scarce yet distinctive use of paper in regional sha-manistic traditions in Korea inspired the artist to initiate this series. Our booth will also include Yang's wall-mounted Appliance Sculpture Twelve Pyeongchang-gil Moisture – #1 MJ134 (2022). It is part of a series of sculptural works utilising kitchen sinks, which are covered with Venetian blinds and lit from within. The work bears a Korean street name in its title. Yang conceived another Appliance Sculpture edition – Seven Dircksenstraße Moisture – bearing a Berlin street name in its title. Both editions make reference to the homes of Yang in two different cities, Seoul and Berlin, addressing the idea of "double life" as well as the subject of "domesticity."
Also on display will be a group of sculptures from the series The invisible enemy should not exist (2021) by Michael Rakowitz (*1973). This work belongs to an ongoing project that attempts to create full-size re-productions of artefacts which were destroyed or looted from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad following the US invasion in 2003. Over fifteen thousand objects disappeared from the collection, about half of which remain missing. Drawing on resources from the University of Chicago and Interpol, Rakowitz recreates individual objects out of commercial packaging and newspapers produced in the Middle East. Museum-style labels identify the works and their status as "missing", "stolen", "retrieved" or "unknown" while accompanying quotations from experts contextualize stories of loss and recovery as integral to the identity of the original artefacts.
Also on view will be works by Swedish artist Nina Canell (*1979), entitled Interiors (Salty) (2016). Extending the boundaries of art, Canell's practice centers around experimentation and process. The displayed works consist of three dishcloths which were soaked with salty water. The dried salt appears now as a sculptural material on the yellow surfaces.
Parent, oblique (pink) (2022), a new two-part painting by British artist Ian Kiaer (*1971) will be presented for the first time at Paris+. In his work, Kiaer reflects on questions of architecture and philosophy, transform-ing complex research into abstract painting. Parent, oblique (pink) (2022) responds to ideas of the French philosopher Paul Virilio (1932–2018) and the French architect Claude Parent (1923–2016), who developed a theory of the "angle of the oblique", designing spaces at angles to make the participants more attentive to their body.
We will also show a drawing on paper, Panthers in bed (2022), by New York-based painter Walter Price (*1989). The piece is framed behind red plexiglass. Price added round black panther stickers onto the drawing. These very literal black panthers allude to the revolutionary political organisation. This work is a good example of Price's aim to challenge the viewer to be "more comfortable with being uncomfortable." It stems from the body of work which is currently on view at Price's first solo show, Pearl Lines, at our gallery (until January 21, 2023).
French Fluxus artist Robert Filliou (1926–1987) will also be part of our presentation at Paris+. We will show the unique piece il y a un noeud au milieu de cette ficelle au centre de cette page où il y eut un dessin (1972), one of Filliou's object boxes, as well as Childlike Uses of Warlike Material (1971), seven colour silkscreen prints in a cardboard portfolio, presented framed at Paris+. Filliou himself called the work a "contribution to the art of peace" – a political statement that couldn't be more relevant in our current times.