Christoph Draeger "Monumental"
Y Gallery (the Bowery)
This event has ended.
Y Gallery presents Monumental a solo exhibition by Swiss artist Christoph Draeger curated by Cecilia Jurado. The artist, who's work is often reflecting upon mega disasters as media events, now shifts his focus onto more autobiographical possibilities of tragedy, with a series of subtly rendered observations and a discreet and poetic yet politically charged intervention.
Draeger photographed ghost bikes in Manhattan and Brooklyn, white memorials of anonymous authorship for bicycle riders killed by cars in the streets of the city. These markers, old bikes painted all white, are locked to 'No Parking' poles and were erected without a permit. As the city doesn't take them down, probably out of respect, they become successful squatters in public space, silent reminders of recurrent tragedies.
In addition, in a video of a recent performance, the artist is seen joining Critical Mass, a grass root movement as a ghost rider, dressed from helmet to toe in white on a white bicycle - a ghost among other protesters. Massive crowds of cyclists all riding together can sometimes bring the traffic in a city to a standstill. One day before his opening on May 1st, the international workers day, Draeger will once again join Critical Mass as a ghost, this time with an unknown number of other white riders. In Europe, anarchists, all dressed in black (the black block), come out to fight the police on May 1st. Here, people will join the Critical Mass demonstration all dressed in white, the color of peace. Peace being a concept that paradoxically shows up like a ghost.
The exhibition at Y Gallery, which includes photographs in light boxes, video with the ghost riders and a sculpture of a smashed street section, emphasizes on absence as a spiritual phase. The fighter who transited the world had crashed and died. Because sometimes one has to die in order to resurrect.
Christoph Draeger’s work has been featured in many solo exhibitions, including shows at Kunsthaus Zurich and Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Switzerland; Orchard Gallery in Derry (UK),; Halle für Kunst in Lueneburg/Germany among others, as well as in group exhibitions at P.S.1, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Paço das Artes São Paulo, MassMoca-the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and at KunstWerke, Berlin, among other venues. He participated to the KwangJu-, Havana-, Valencia-, Turin- and Liverpool Biennials. The Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Kunsthaus Zurich and the Centre pour l’image Contemporaine in Geneva are among the public collections that house his work. This year Christoph Draeger was part of Documentary Fortnight, 2010: MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film, Telling Stories Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Wien and That's All, Folks! Stadshallen, Bruges, Belgium. He lives and works in New York.
Media
Schedule
from May 01, 2010 to June 06, 2010
Opening Reception on 2010-05-01 from 19:00 to 22:00