Group Show 2015
July 01, 2015 - October 15, 2015
Yoshii Gallery is proud to present a group show with Sonia Gomes, Berlinde de Bruyckere, Franz West and Kathy Prendergast. The exhibition challenges our interpretation, connection and engagement of familiar found objects.
Sonia Gomes Brazilian artist Sonia Gomes (b. 1948, Caetanòolis, Brazil) creates multi-dimensional structural sculptures using fabric, thread, and objects that she found or were gifted to her. Gomes manipulates these found materials through seamstry and mechanics. By sewing and twisting these fragmented found objects together, Gomes honors the previous history and importance of the objects, symbolizing the racial and emotional issues that are a part of some Brazilians. Simultaneously, she tells her own history as an artist of African descent married with her strong indigenous Brazilian cultural influences. After starting her career at 45 years old, Gomes has quickly become an internationally recognized artist commanding significant influence to younger Brazilian artists. Her works are exhibited internationally including the 56th Biennale di Venezia (2015); Museu Afro Brasil, Sao Paolo (2013), Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg (2013), and Kunsten-Museum of Modern Art Aalborg, Aalborg, Denmark (2013). She currently lives and works in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Berlinde de Bruyckere Multimedia artist Berlinde de Bruyckere (b. 1964, Belgium) desires to restore the ability to disturb the public, teetering on the line between safety and discomfort. By using symbols that most viewers can connect with, such as humans and horses, she conveys a feeling of safety through familiarity. The positions that she puts her sculptures and illustrations in revokes discomfort and pain, completely what she intended. While she considers her sculptures to be individual pieces of work, she views her drawings as one consistent body of work connected by the concept that it is her execution and evolution of her ideas. Despite being a young artist, de Bruyckere is incredibly established. Her opening exhibition was in the Italian Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2013. Since then, she has become a powerhouse of success, while remaining true to her ultimate message of reminding audiences of the possibility of pain. She currently lives and works in Ghent, Belgium.
Franz West (b. 1947, d. 2012, Vienna, Austria) belonged to the generation of artists exposed to the Actionist and Performance Art era in the 1960s and 1970s that challenged the traditional relationship of the artwork and viewer, where art was seen as autonomous. His idea of a complete artwork is through the physical interaction of the artwork and viewer. This results in an ignition of ongoing internal reactions, uniting in both form and function of the object, ultimately forming a conversation between artwork and viewer. His sculptures, objects and collaboration with other artists have found a way to differentiate themselves from the world in which they are made to exist. “It doesn’t matter what the art looks like, but how they are used” West said. Despite West’s playful nature as a man and the lewdness of his sculptures, he was a serious self-taught reader and thinker in philosophy, psychoanalytical literature, the power of the abject and the seriousness of the absurd. West’s works are fixtures in international exhibitions such as Documenta and Biennales internationally, as well as major public collections including Center Pompidou, Paris, Museum Ludwid, Cologne, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and MAXXI, Rome. West was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 54th Venice Biennale 2011.
Kathy Prendergast‘s (b. 1958, Dublin, UK) early series of works were concerned with the ideas of territory and colonization, with maps as a metaphor for control and references to Ireland and its struggle for independence. In the 1990s, her attention focused on works centering on the themes of sexuality, identity, landscape and power. Prendergast began to decontextualize and manipulate everyday objects, which have histories familiar to the viewer, such as family clothes, photographs and genetic maps into enigmatic surrealist hand-painted bronze sculptures. This allows viewers to reevaluate their own interaction with these everyday objects, resulting in a timeless interpretation of love, memory and loss. Prendergast was awarded the Premio 2000 in 1995 for Best Young Artist at the Venice Biennale. She is represented in public collections of Tate Gallery, London, The British Government Collection, the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Arts Council of Ireland, the Albright-Knox Museum, Buffalo, New York, the Santa Barbara University Museum, the Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Cheekwood Museum of Art, Nashville, the Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery Dublin. She currently lives and works in London, UK.