NYAB Event - Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová "Clash!"

Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová "Clash!"

Art in General

This event has ended.

Clash!, a New Commission by Anetta Mona Chişa and Lucia Tkáčová, takes the form of an installation that imitates piles of stones usually found on streets or construction sites. Referencing stones that are often used by street demonstrators with the intention to harm, the stones’ potential role as impromptu weapons is here transformed by the use of material to create them.

Fabricated over many days in porcelain, and hand-painted with acrylic paint to resemble the appearance of real stones, these objects are in fact very thin, eggshell-like and hollow inside, becoming precious and vulnerable objects that are uncanny and prop-like. Able to be touched by visitors to the gallery, the stones are open to potential damage or even destruction over the duration of the exhibition—a potential change in the state of their existence that reflects Anetta Mona Chişa’s and Lucia Tkáčová’s interest in a dynamic interaction between audience and artwork that triggers precisely the dialectics they intend to represent.

This New Commission is presented alongside Either Way, We Lose, an inflatable fist squeezed into the storefront space. Emblematic throughout history and across cultures as a symbol for struggle, anger and the yearning for change—the fist is recreated here as a harmless toy or object for mass amusement, revealing the often unfortunate fate of revolutions in their potential to entertain, to be simplified or stereotyped, or even to become a perverse kind of attraction. This presentation is courtesy of Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels, Belgium.

Anetta Mona Chişa was born in Romania and Lucia Tkáčová was born in Slovakia. They are currently based in Berlin and Prague and have collaborated on projects since 2000. Selected recent solo shows include: Either Way, We Lose, Sorry We’re Closed, Brussels (2012); The Diplomatic Tent (with Ion Grigorescu), Salonul de proiecte Bucharest (2011); Performing History, Romania Pavilion (with Ion Grigorescu), 54 Biennale di Venezia (2011); Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2009). They have been included in various group shows, including: 3rd Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow (2012); Rearview Mirror, The Power Plant – Contemporary Art gallery, Toronto (2011); There Has Been No Future, There Will Be No Past, ISCP, New York (2010).

[Image: Anetta Mona Chişa & Lucia Tkáčová "Clash!" (2012) porcelain, acrylic paint, dimensions variable. Photo credits Michiel de Cleene, 2012]