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Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to present ‘Endless Theatre Project,’ the first US solo presentation of work by London based artist Ian Kiaer, opening Friday, September 5.
Ian Kiaer groups architectural models, untouched or slightly modified found objects and two-dimensional work to create complex compositions and poetic narratives. Heavily researched, Kiaer’s work is layered with references to selected figures and concepts from the history of architecture and social philosophy. Describing ideas and methods for the successful integration of man within society or environment, these arrangements inevitably provoke an atmosphere that is at once subdued, hopeful, tragic and romantic; the romance of the ideal, checked by the tragedy of the unattainable. As the vulnerable nature of the material suggests the impossible application of various utopian notions, the cerebral elegance of the compositions lends form to the dream. The amorphous indentations of a soccer ball bladder, or an irregular sheet of polystyrene foam take on the poetic structural randomness of the universe, a universe whose immensity is described by the diminutive scale and ultra-delicate nature of the work set with the much larger architectural spaces.
‘Endless Theatre Project’ presents six new Ian Kiaer compositions inspired by the work of Claude-Nicholas Ledoux and Frederick Kiesler, architects that Kiaer has been concerned with for some time; in particular, the influence of Ledoux on Kiesler's design of theaters. Both architects contributed extensively to the thinking of theater buildings at a time when theater as a whole was seen to influence society in a particularly new and revolutionary way.
With pastoral backdrops drafted in Korean ink, Kiaer has alternatively used geometric cuts of polystyrene, umbrella parts, a ping pong ball and soccer ball bladders, to evoke Ledoux and Kiesler’s preoccupation with the audience's relationship to the stage. Ledoux sought to desolve certain conventional barriers in theater design, bringing the stage forward and curving the seating into an almost semi-circle. Kiesler went further, making plans that sought an almost complete circular layout, a theatre in the round. He sought to totally open up the relationship between audience and actor and destroy any notion of back-stage.
In ‘St. John at Patmos,’ Kiaer uses an office chair as one element in a typical composition, where floor, wall and ceiling become one with sculpture, painting and object. In Kiaer’s work, space (or spacing) plays a key role too, as the viewer’s eye moves across the multiple planes and focal points of each composition, deciphering the relationship between objects, reading locations, and imagining the epic nature of their subjects. This in turn is consistent with Kiesler’s wider theory of "correalism", which developed an approach to understanding the position of art within the interior of architecture and architecture within the environment of landscape. Kiesler wanted wherever possible to ignore disciplinary boundaries and see how the interaction of art objects, furniture, walls, interiors and landscape could inform one another.
Ian Kiaer lives and works in London and is currently featured in the Italian Pavilion of the 50th Venice Biennale. In November, Kiaer will have a solo presentation in the contemporary artist series at the Tate Britain. Recent group exhibitions include Artist’s Imagine Architecture at the ICA, Boston; Manifesta 3, Ljubljana, Slovania; and Building Structures, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center, NY.
Please contact the gallery for images and further information.
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