The Langhans Gallery Prague

... A restless spirit breaking with convention, a keen observer of the absurdity of the world around us, an eye for detail and precision – these are the qualities reflected in all areas of Breuning’s work – his photographs, drawings, installations, sculptures, and film projects.

Breuning draws on popular culture, that mass lifestyle, which operates regardless of political, aesthetic, cultural and social boundaries. In an interview published in Rebel magazine in 2002, he says: ‘It’s a thrill to know that I’m looking and listening to the same things that millions of people are at the same time. [...] I like watching and working with media that have the farthest reach, that penetrate the deepest. With this, I want to hit neurological points in the cultural brain, set off popular signals that have been so deeply absorbed they can practically guarantee a reflex.’ Banality and the world of mass entertainment are, however, devices he employs perfectly to create postmodern works, turning in ever simpler forms to general questions of existence in a globalized world.

Brevity and intelligent humour, reminiscent of his Swiss fellow-artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, make Breuning’s works subtle and comprehensible to the intellect, while always concealing the element of surprise and the ‘charm of simplicity’. He also custom-designs his installations for particular spaces, which comprise dozens of objects as well as sound and video installations. In a typically postmodern way his works recount several stories at once: ‘Not just a story within the content of my images, but the story of my personal attraction to certain details floating in the mainstream – the details that “pop” for me, the story of the public’s obsession with codes that represent power, the story of our degenerated relationship to second-hand information [...] the story of photography, the story of future relations between art and the popular landscape of images.’

Organized by Breuning and the staff of Langhans Gallery Prague, this is his first solo exhibition in the Czech Republic. In it he presents a selection of drawings, which he has mostly made in his favourite New York City café, wittily commenting on human life, often with the irony of caricature. On two floors of the gallery you can see a selection of photographs from 1997–2008 and his latest series of photographs, Color Studies (2009), which premièred at the Kodama Gallery, Kyoto, last April.

Another work at the exhibition is Only One (2000), which recalls Breuning’s ‘Gothic’ or ‘horror’ works from the end of the last century, and the ironically playful installations Mr. Sushi (2005), Der Teich (2007), and The Eatmes (2007), in which he remakes everyday items in surprising materials.

Breuning is also a film-maker. The intimate video Home (2004), which was first screened in this country at the Prague Biennale, held in the Trade Fair Palace, Prague, 2006, considers the search for identity and the meaning of life, which he then develops in Home 2 (2007). This thirty-minute, grandly installed video became a hit at last year’s Whitney Biennial, New York. Home 2 shows the hero on his journeys to Papua New Guinea. The actor and Breuning’s friend of many years, Brian Kerstetter, the guide and narrator with ice-blue contact lenses, penetrates various places and situations on his travels, whether as a cynical commentator or a naive participant, and ends the journey a homeless wreck. With his simple mode of filming, Breuning explores the basic human need to belong to a community in a globalized, yet atomized world.

Breuning, a star of the contemporary international art scene, was born in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, in 1970. He studied photography at art school in Zurich, and now lives and works in New York. In recent years he has attracted attention with his solo exhibition entitled ‘Oh yes ... it is a garden!’ at the Chisenhale Gallery, London, in 2005, ‘Olaf Breuning’ at the Migros Museum, Zurich, in 2007, and the Whitney Biennial, New York City, in 2008.

Olaf Breuning will be present at the Langhans Gallery private view and also at the screening of his other videos in the Světozor cinema, Friday, 19 June, from 8.30 pm. The admission ticket from the Langhans Gallery Prague, which will be open till 8.30 pm, can be exchanged at the Světozor box office free of charge for a ticket to the screening.

While the exhibition is on, Breuning’s Queen Mary (JRP Ringier, 2006), a book of drawings made during his cruise on the famous ocean liner, will be available for purchase at a special price.

Impressum

exhibition concept: Olaf Breuning, David Korecký, Rolf Wismer

writing, editing, and PR: Kateřina Kloubová

translations: Petra Key, Derek Paton

graphic design: Robert V. Novák

technical assistance: Jan Haubelt, Václav Kubela, Iva Poláková & studio DOT OR NOT art of print

gallery director: Zuzana Meisnerová Wismer

The artworks have kindly been lent by the Olaf Breuning Studio, New York, and Galerie Nicola von Senger, Zurich.

The exhibition has been organized with the kind support of Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, Swiss Air, Prague City Hall, and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.

More about the artist http://www.olafbreuning.com/

Langhans Gallery Prague  participates in the Muzeum Night project this year. On Saturday, June 20th, the newly open exhibition Olaf Breuning will be open till 1 pm for visitors.

More about the project: http://www.prazskamuzejninoc.cz/index.php?&l=en