↳ Exhibitions

David Jablonowski at SpazioA

March 6, 2019

Artist: David Jablonowski

Exhibition title: Futures Contract

Venue: SpazioA, Pistoia, Italy

Date: February 16 – March 29, 2019

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and SpazioA, Pistoia

SpazioA is proud to present on Saturday February 16, 2019, 6pm, Futures Contract, first solo exhibition by David Jablonowski (1982, Bochum, Germany) at the gallery.

In his exhibition, the German artist uses a wide variety of appearances, physical and video works, to make his critical analyses of abstract and complex concepts tactical. He wields sculpture as a physical knowledge production tool in exploring its communication potential for deeper internalized understanding.

The title, Futures Contract, refers to a legal agreement between partners in the field of finance regarding a commodity or service in a specified future. The agreement might give long-term confidence in an uncertain economy of rising and declining values. It also assumes an understanding of future needs, however, and how they may be preferably fulfilled. Such future foresight might be viewed critically in terms of our global economies, ecologies, and fragile prosperity. It might also exemplify an entrepreneurial way of thinking that links growth and prosperity to technocratic and quantifiable values, raising questions as to how this reasoning relates to social-generational welfare, post-war contracts on peace, economic exchange, and equality and its rewards.

A variety of materials and techniques resemble relics of possible future production and technologies. Some sculptures consist of 3D prints and CNC-cut technologies, for example, exposing almost handwriting-free ready-mades. In contrast, expressive sculptures in carbon fiber are shaped by hand, undermining the surplus character of this high-tech material for weight reduction and high performance. Furthermore, the video works consist of layered storytelling and hyperlink assemblages.

The Futures Contract works continue an ongoing line of Jablonowski’s interests, highlighting his longing for innovation and redistribution. By the time Jablonowski finished his art studies in Amsterdam in 2009, he had become a member of a generation of artists inevitably required to analyze their social existence in a moment of a global financial crisis and social collapse – all based on contracts and certainties previously taken for granted. Corporate Foresight (BALTIC, Newcastle), Blue Greens (Kunstverein Münster), Hype Cycles (Kunsthalle Lingen), Das Kapital Raum (Gallery Fons Welters, Amsterdam), Prediction tower (Booijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam), and Public hybrids (Kunsthalle Baden Baden) are all titles of Jablonowski’s exhibitions or works over the past ten years, all of which offering similar critical interpretations of socio-economic and ecological conditions premises for innovation, commodity exchange, trade routes, financial and social redistribution of wealth, and technological preconditions.

David Jablonowski (Bochum, Germany, 1982. Lives and works in Amsterdam). He received his BA at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, followed by a 2-year residency at De Ateliers, Amsterdam and a residency at ISCP in New York. His works are included in a wide range of institutional and private collections such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Gemeentemuseum The Hague (NL), Museum Glaskasten Marl (DE) and the collection of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn (DE). He had large solo-exhibitions at, among others, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (DE); Kunsthalle Lingen (DE), the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Arts (UK); Westfälischer Kunstverein Münster (DE); Gemeentemuseum The Hague (NL); Dallas Contemporary (Texas, US).

He participated in numerous group exhibitions, among others, at Kunsthalle Basel (CH); Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (NL); Taxispalais, Kunsthalle Tirol (AT); Haus Lange/Esthers (DE); ZKM, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (DE).

David Jablonowski, Futures Contract, 2019, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia

David Jablonowski, Futures Contract, Hardcopy 4, 2019, brass, bronze tinted mirror, carbon fiber, laminated chipboard, cm 257 x 33 x 31

David Jablonowski, Futures Contract (time/space) 2, 2019, titanium, bronze tinted mirror, CNC cut aluminium, carbon fiber, fused polypropylene, cm 145 x 173 x 112

David Jablonowski, Commodity Futures 1, 2019, epoxy primed PU foam, brass, bronze tinted mirror, CNC cut aluminium, acrylic, cm 162 x 30 x 31

David Jablonowski, Commodity Futures 3, 2019, epoxy primed PU foam, brass, bronze tinted mirror, CNC cut aluminium, acrylic, copper, cm 168 x 28 x 30

David Jablonowski, The Golden Rules of Flaming (Remastered), 2018, brass, Maerklin train, anodised aluminium, monitors, cm 97 x 170 x 47

David Jablonowski, Soft-Hard Commodity Fusion 2, 2019, polypropylene, gold tinted mirror, stainless steel, brass, wooden hay forks, cm 175 x 220 x 80