Exercises in Style at Suprainfinit

Artists: Vanessa Billy, Ben Burgis & Ksenia Pedan, Luke Burton, Adam Cruces & Louisa Gagliardi, Adrian Dan, Lauren Keeley, Jan Kiefer, Ian Law, Erin Jane Nelson, Eugen Roșca

Exhibition title: Exercises in Style

Curated by: Simina Neagu

Venue: Suprainfinit, Bucharest, Romania

Date: June 23 – August 15, 2016

Photography: Catalin Georgescu, all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Suprainfinit, Bucharest

In 1947, towards the middle of the year, Raymond Queneau, of about 44 years old, publishes “Exercises in Style”. 99 vignettes are included in the volume, recounting the same story – a minor argument in an overcrowded Parisian bus involving a slightly eccentric young man, followed by some sound sartorial advice offered in front of the Gare Saint-Lazare to the same character. All a simple backdrop for an exhaustive range of rhetorical devices, word games and experiments with language. Modestly, Queneau describes his work as naïve, craftsmanlike and amusing.

Precisely 69 years later, a group of artists are invited to choose a ‘style’ and respond with an artwork. The 12 artists email back and forth, receive a copy of the book and ultimately select different entries without major overlaps. All an exercise in the relevance (or irrelevance) of bringing together the visual and the verbal. ‘Tactile’, ‘Metaphorical’ or ‘Spectral’, the exhibition translates, reacts or rejects the written word.

Adam Cruces & Louisa Gagliardi, untitled, 2016

Lauren Keeley, Later On, 2016

Ben Burgis & Ksenia Pedan, Untitled Cafe, 2016

Vanessa Billy, Fingers, 2015

Luke Burton, Ambivalent Man Hiding Under Fountain, 2016

Adam Cruces & Louisa Gagliardi, untitled, 2016

Eugen Roșca, Untitled, 2016

Ben Burgis & Ksenia Pedan, Untitled Cafe, 2016

Eugen Roșca, Untitled, 2016

Erin Jane Nelson, Touch.tank.2, 2016

Ben Burgis & Ksenia Pedan, Untitled Cafe, 2016

Adrian Dan, Kramer, 2016

Ben Burgis & Ksenia Pedan, Untitled Cafe, 2016

Jan Kiefer, Hey Tony, 2014

Ian Law, At Laura Bartlett Gallery with Eddy Bailhache (RAM 2580), four unfinished paintings, and various non-ambient heating elements (10-14.02.2014), 2014