More Than Lovers, More Than Friends at Futura

Artists: Maxime Boidy & Pierre Paulin & Tan Lin, Kasper Bosmans & Marthe Ramm Fortun, Jan Brož & Barbora Kleinhamplová, Elaine Cameron-Weir & Carlos Reyes & Ben Schumacher, Andrew Dorsey, Sonja Engelhardt & Thom Kubli, Jason Hendrik Hansma & Vivian Sky Rehberg; Huang Xiaoli & Li Jinghu & Li Yueyang & Yang Zi & Zhang Xiyuan, K.r.m. Mooney, Parallel Practice, Augustas Serapinas, Allison Somers, Nicholas Aung Sung

Exhibition title: More Than Lovers, More Than Friends

Curated by: Jo-ey Tang

Venue: Futura, Prague, Czech Republic

Date: June 21 – September 11, 2016

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Futura, Prague

More Than Lovers, More Than Friends implodes the aggregate of divergent fields. The dynamic movement of space-time motored by intense subjectivities as its core, as matters traversing through double proton slits. Rather than a venn diagram of fixed co-relations, its various projects and instances take shifts of consciousness as a necessary course. Followdowns instead of follow-ups. Over-throughs instead of follow-throughs. Not elaboration, but a tear from any notion of spatio-temporality, but most importantly exceeding our commitments to living and to each other.

More Than Lovers, More Than Friends envelopes newly formed convolutions, as opposed to collaboration. Convolution as in the mathematical operation in which the combination of two sets of numbers produce a third dimensionality. As in music programming, in which the spectral profile of one sound can be put in the amplitude envelope of another. Two disparate forms produce a third intertextual entity. Those who have accepted this proposition must be willing to receive and produce knowledge for themselves, and sublimate the possibility of transmission from the experience. To project into the future, at the risk of making the past completely unknown or changed, where the future could shape the past and its reception.

It is with this guiding spirit that More Than Lovers, More Than Friends will be corroborated: one steps into its vicinity so suddenly, that our human presence will pull the present apart. Empty rooms become passages. Labyrinthine passages and dark corners become rooms. Where is refuge? The shift of consciousness from one space to another might seem abrupt, sudden, from catatonic to cataclysm. Embedded within it is another exhibition, and perhaps yet another, as antibodies lurking in confrontation. Our minds did it.

More Than Lovers, More Than Friends culls from and facilitates activities and materials from what matters most to us, for now, and what might already be happening. The ongoing translation process of Tan Linʼs essay “Disco as Operating System” into French, a first for the poet and writer, by Pierre Paulin and Maxime Boidy. Vivian Sky Rehberg clamors after the ineffability of scent as an everyday structure, sutured to Jason Hendrik Hansmaʼs engagement with the volume of disappearance. A somatic anticipation hovers around trio Elaine Cameron-Weir, Carlos Reyes, and Ben Schumacher, whose materials regulate speed and weight, as air currents rush through and give forms. Sonja Engelhardt and Thom Kubli tackle the phenomenon of convolution between sculpture and sound, and the space between and within space, as generated algorithms.

An unstable Ikea stool is Kasper Bosmans and Marthe Ramm Fortunʼs peripatetic artifact, gussied up during illicit painting sessions in hotel rooms. Li Jinghu has encouraged for the past couple of years non-artists to engage in artmaking, as a way to rethink subjectivities, artistic ownership and friendship. He sees something in them: director of Dongguan Culture Bureau Huang Xiaoli, former mobster Li Yueyang, and art professionals Zhang Xiyuan and Yang Zi. Andrew Dorsey, an American butcher who works as a chef at The Beast, the Texan smokehouse in Paris, formerly of Maison Plisson, the Parisian delicatessen, and Brooklynʼs Marlow & Daughters, will do nothing more than live his life, as is.

A program of film endings plays in the setting of a waiting room. Film spoilers are litmus tests of our subjectivity, our social being, and our attitude towards things. In this protracted or prolonged moment, consciousness shifts as we approach the end of our complicity, prompting a contradictory feeling where the mood and what we are seeing no longer match. The film is a delirium. It goes on without us. Back in our lives, we feel ourselves watching ourselves. Going at it, again, as more than lovers and more than friends.

Allison Somers, Tablets I-XXIV, 2015-ongoing
Recuperated terra cotta tiles, gelatin, photo emulsion, dimensions variable

Ben Schumacher, Childhood deficit, 2016
Inkjet on oil on canvas

Carlos Reyes, More Than Lovers, More Than Friends 1, 2016
Handblown glass, porcupine quills, water, 63 X 18 X 19cm

Carlos Reyes, More Than Lovers, More Than Friends 2, 2016
Handblown glass, hardware, 128 X 20 X 23cm

Carlos Reyes, More Than Lovers, More Than Friends 3, 2016
Handblown glass, water, hardware, 26 X 25 X 103cm

Elaine Cameron-Weir, Costume, 2016
Silk parachute, thread, parachute cord, hardware, dimension variable

Sonja Engelhardt, Thom Kubli, 2016

Huang Xiaoli, A Dream Blossoms, 2014
5 mini-projectors, cardboard, Dimension variable

Jan Brož & Barbora Kleinhamplovà, More Than Lovers, More Than Friends, 2016
4’36”, digital video

Jason Hendrik Hansma & Vivian Sky Rehberg, Untitled (Fumare), 2016
Timed slide projection 80 35mm negatives

Carlos Reyes, More Than Lovers, More Than Friends 1, 2016
Handblown glass, porcupine quills, water, 63 X 18 X 19cm

K.r.m. Mooney, Volute I, 2016
Steel, oxy-set polymer, 22.86cm x 22.86cm x 44.45cm

K.r.m. Mooney, Volute I, 2016; Volute II, 2016
Steel, oxy-set polymer, 22.86cm x 22.86cm x 44.45cm

K.r.m. Mooney, Volute I, 2016
Steel, oxy-set polymer, 22.86cm x 22.86cm x 44.45cm

K.r.m. Mooney, Volute I, 2016; Volute II, 2016
Steel, oxy-set polymer, 22.86cm x 22.86cm x 44.45cm

Li Yueyang, Abyss, 2016
Iron, 60 x 60 x 60cm

Kasper Bosmans & Marthe Ramm Fortun, Suite, 2016
Ikea marius chair, semi precious gems, printed matter

Maxime Boidy & Tan Lin & Pierre Paulin, Le disco comme système d’exploitation, 2016. A4 printouts of translation drafts throughout the duration of the exhibition

Nicholas Andre Sung, pagoda cold wave lotion tragedy, 2016
Vinyl, cologne, 91.44cm by 71.12cm

Nicholas Andre Sung, at mega join-join pa, 2016
7.62cm by 25.40cm plates, steel

Sonja Engelhardt, 2016

Sonja Engelhardt, Each going different places, equally collecting past & future, 2016. 46 x 31 x 28 cm (+ variable antenna)

Sonja Engelhardt, More than language along the wavelengths between them, 2016. ceramic, mirror film, amber resin, stainless steel, aluminum, 46 x 31 x 21 cm (+ variable antenna)