Artists: Nick Bastis, Nina Beier, Liudvikas Buklys, Angie Keefer, Nicholas Matranga, Post Brothers, Anne- Mie Van Kerckhoven
Exhibition title: CARTOON PHYSICS
Curated by: Chris Fitzpatrick
Venue: Kerstin Engholm, Vienna, Austria
Date: September 11 – October 17, 2015
Photography: images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Kerstin Engholm, Vienna
The laws of physics do not apply in cartoons. If we stretch this lawless dimension off the screen, and attach its illogics to our realm, the limitless elasticity of cartoon physics offers a more fluid way of thinking about everything from the comical and sinister implications of artificial intelligence to the warped elliptical routes through which information is disseminated, from a waning anthropocentrism to the seemingly esoteric workings of speculative finance today (and whether or not today is even still a relevant temporal coordinate), and so on.
Contemporary art operates similarly. Opening 10 September 2015, Cartoon Physics is an exhibition of interdisciplinary work by Nick Bastis (US), Nina Beier (DK), Liudvikas Buklys (LT), Angie Keefer (US), Nicholas Matranga (US), Post Brothers (US), and Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (BE). It’s set within an alphabetized topography of nearly 2000 science fiction novels, which line the perimeter of the gallery, and which hosts a rather diverse population: 2 pairs of pink horses, mechanically printed (and misprinted) on 2 stretched canvases; a variable set of cryptic logos, silkscreened in copper on both sides of 400 gram business cards; 9 carpet samples, imbued with the psychology of sales in thick acrylic paint; a freestanding pane of teleprompter glass, offering a dual layer of opacity; 2 robotic vacuum cleaners, hacked with artificial intelligence to perform a choreography defined by the electronic noise in the air waves; snails sliming vinyl objects and storefront glass; serial posters parroting the grammar of empty metaphors that cannibalistically proliferate in stock imagery databanks; and all of this narrated by a talking head, projected in a cartoon world, where he correlates the workings of credit and financial speculation with the portable hole.
Angie Keefer, Horses, 2015
Post Brothers, Memories Found in a Bathtub, or What Entropy Means to Me, 2006-2015
Post Brothers, Memories Found in a Bathtub, or What Entropy Means to Me, 2006-2015
Nicholas Matranga, Was it a rat I saw, 2010
Nicholas Matranga, Was it a rat I saw, 2010
Nick Bastis, Divider Bell #3, 2015
Annie-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Untitled, 1995
Nick Bastis, When you don’t find what you’re looking for, sleep (Eames Side Chair), 2014
Nick Bastis, When you don’t find what you’re looking for, sleep (Hee Welling Bar Stool), 2014
Nick Bastis, When you don’t find what you’re looking for, sleep (IKEA Flintan Chair), 2014
Nick Bastis, When you don’t find what you’re looking for, sleep (Le Corbusier Swivel Chair), 2014
Liudvikas Buklys, Prototypes for secondary schools, 2015
Liudvikas Buklys, Roombas like snails 1, 2013
Liudvikas Buklys, Roombas like snails 2, 2013
Nick Bastis, When you don’t find what you’re looking for, sleep, 2015
Nick Bastis, When you don’t find what you’re looking for, sleep, 2015
Nick Bastis, When you don’t find what you’re looking for, sleep, 2015
Nick Bastis, When you don’t find what you’re looking for, sleep, 2015
Post Brothers, The Hole Idea, 2015
