Galeria Nara Roesler | New York is pleased to announce the opening of Human Ecology featuring works in various mediums by Isaac Julien, Lucia Koch, and Eduardo Navarro opening on Wednesday, July 13th and running through Saturday, September 10th, 2016.
Isaac Julien’s single channel work, Stones Against Diamonds is a mediation inspired by Italian-born Brazilian architect, curator, writer and, designer, Lina Bo Bardi. His inspiration stems from a letter written by Bo Bardi to her husband Pietro Bardi in which she describes her love for semi-precious stones over gems such as diamonds. The architect recalls how she began, while in Italy, a collection of these stones, which enabled her to rethink design in the most remarkable way. For Julien, Bo Bardi’s letter is performed through a metaphor of the unconscious, an inaccessible place of beauty that can be reached only through the process of psychoanalysis and artistic reflection. Stones Against Diamonds pays homage to Bo Bardi’s iconic glass easels by presenting his film on a high resolution monitor reminiscent of the original glass used by Lina embedded in a stone easel further referencing her signature exhibition displays.
Lucia Koch continues her exploration of space and light as well as artificial mimicking of nature through her latest medium of choice, printed silk. Air Temperature is a body of work using mathematical equations to reproduce various sunsets she has seen around the world in cities such as Porto Alegre, São Paulo, and Nagoya to name a few. The curtains transform a natural environment into an industrial aesthetic practice cataloguing her sunset archive. Also on view is Koch’s photograph from her architectural series, Amostras da Arquitetura [Architectural Samples] in which she continues to explore the interior versus the exterior but this time through empty containers. By photographing these used boxes from above, she creates an illusion alluding to historic and contemporary architectural samples or maquettes.
Eduardo Navarro’s Oven Session Drawings were produced on tracing paper and painted with a sugar and water solution. This mixture darkens as the paper is later baked forming figurative, domestic drawings. Also part of the exhibition is the instruments used by the artist during his recent performance at Frieze New York | Projects: Instructions from the Sky. The performers followed the clouds in their instruments, which consisted of 5-mirrored discs and helmets, all reflectors or gathers of information they used to received instructions from the sky.
Parallel to the show, the artists on view are engaged in different projects in New York and abroad. Isaac Julien presents his duratrans image in light box from Western Union as well as photographs and single channel from Stones Against Diamonds in the show “The Art of the Treasure Hunt”, opening on July 1st in Castello di Volpaia, Tuscany, Italy and will be on view until Oct 31st. Lucia Koch, one of the finalists of Victoria & Albert’s 5th Jameel Prize is currently showing at the Pera Museum until August 14th in Istanbul, Turkey. As part of the High Line Art commission program, Eduardo Navarro’s performance We Who You Spin Around will take place in New York from July 19th to the 21st between 6:30pm and 8:30pm at the Rail Yards at 33rd street of the High Line.
about isaac julien
Isaac Julien (b. 1960 in London, UK) lives and works in London. Julien was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2001 for his films The Long Road to Mazatlán (1999) and Vagabondia (2000), both made in collaboration with Javier de Frutos. Julien has pioneered a form of multi-screen installations with works such as Western Union: Small Boats (2007), Ten Thousand Waves (2010) and Playtime (2014). Julien was the recipient of the Performa Award (2008), the prestigious MIT Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts (2001) and the Frameline Lifetime Achievement Award (2002). His work Paradise Omeros was presented as part of Documenta XI in Kassel (2002). In 2003, he won the Grand Jury Prize at the Kunstfilm Biennale in Cologne for his single screen version of Baltimore; in 2008, he received a Special Teddy for his film that he collaborated on with Tilda Swinton, on Derek Jarman, Derek, at the Berlin International Film Festival. Julien has had solo shows at the Pompidou Centre in Paris (2005), MOCA Miami (2005), Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover (2006), the Museu Nacional de Arte
Contemporânea - Museu do Chiado, Lisbon, Portugal (2009),
Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2011) and SESC Pompeia in Brazil
(2012). His work Ten Thousand Waves (2010) went on world tour,
and has been on display in over 15 countries so far, including the
Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2013/14 and most recently at
Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in 2016. Playtime and Kapital have been exhibited at El Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City and Minsheng Museum in Shanghai (both in 2016).
about lucia koch
Lucia Koch (b. 1966, Porto Alegre, Brazil) lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. Throughout her career she has become known for her interventions within existing architecture, either through her use of sculpture, photography, video or colored filters. She has recently participated in La Temperatura del Aire (Fundación Caja de Burgos, Burgos, Spain, 2015); Prospect 3 (New Orleans, USA, 2015), curated by Franklin Sirmans; Cruzamentos: Contemporary Art in Brazil (Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, USA, 2014); A Sense of Place (Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, USA, 2014); and Re-emerge: Towards a New Cultural Cartography (11th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates, 2013). She has been included in the 11th Biennale de Lyon, France (2011); 27th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2006); 2nd, 5th and 8th editions of the Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil (1999, 2005 and 2011); and the 8th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, Turkey (2003). Koch’s work is in the collections of such institutions as Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA; University of Warwick Art Collection, Warwick, UK; Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, Brazil; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; among others.
about eduardo navarro
Eduardo Navarro (b. 1979, Buenos Aires, Argentina) lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His main solo exhibitions include: Órbita, UTDT (2013); and Estudio Jurídico Mercosur, Faena Arts Center (2012), both in Buenos Aires. His work has appeared in exhibitions including Surround Audience, New Museum Triennial, New York; The Past, The Present, The Possible, Sharjah Biennial, UEA (both in 2015); We, the outsiders, e-flux, New York; Ir para Volver, Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador (both 2014); Weather Permitting, Mercosul Biennial (2013); There is always a cup of sea to sail in, São Paulo Biennial (2010); and Screaming and Hearing, Mercosul Biennial (2009).
