PALEXPO, GENEVA
Booth: C39
Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde is pleased to participate in Art Genéve 2018 with works by late Emirati artist Hassan Sharif (1951-2016) and German-Iranian artist Haleh Redjaian (born 1971, Frankfurt). The booth will highlight their critical approach of using the grid as a measurement tool and foundation for their compositions, allowing for chance and repetition.
Redjaian's drawings on ready-made or hand-drawn grids as well as her spatial installations that require pulling threads across the surface of the wall sprouts a practice of attentive yet intuitive geometric elaborations. The artist allows irregularities and deviations within order. In doing so, she acknowledges the ever-present and unforeseen surprises that make up our incomprehensible lives, where the grid serves as a metaphor for a transitional life that has irregular narratives and makes you understand this asymmetrical logic. Redjaian's minimal but playful use of pen, ink, gold leaf and thread can take the shape of lithographs, carpets, works on paper, murals and three-dimensional installations.
On the other hand, Sharif's Semi-Systems are determined by numerical equations whose outcomes are not predetermined. Conceived with arbitrary self-imposed mathematical rules or instructions that are often outlined in accompanying draft papers, the artist embraces rebellions within these frameworks, breaking rules and inverting formulas. "Art is not made to be understood; it is not a train that carries you to a specific destination. We, the audience, have to get out and walk into new spaces," the artist said.
Having studied art in London in the early 1980s, Sharif was particularly drawn to British Constructivism, and theorist Kenneth Martin's analysis of the movement's 'systemised constructive process governed by chance and order' served more as a catalyst than a path. These ideas have accompanied him throughout his extensive career including the Semi-Systems and also towards the creation of his Objects, Performances and Experiments. Art historian Paulina Kolczynska writes, Sharif "wanted to remain at the fringes of the system in order to retain space for the creation of his own constructivist process… it was through his coined description of "semi-systems" that he made an important statement, signaling that he was taking some distance from the original systematic agenda."
