MaMA 

MAMA’s first exhibition of 2012 is by artists Lizzie Fitch (US, 1981) and Ryan Trecartin (US, 1981). Together with Rhett LaRue they made a series of new work especially for this exhibition, which will be shown with other works by Fitch and a selection of Trecartin’s most recent body of work, Any Ever (2009–2010).

The artists source items for their sculptures just as they do for the sets of Trecartin’s movies, through analytical shopping excursions to department, design and home improvement stores. They approach shopping as an expedition for the linguistic values of goods, which are codified by where they are grouped in the store, how they are merchandised, and what they are called, or, literally, what they are.

The idea of the literal is often pushed to absurd limits effectively as a means of abstraction. Utilizing material purchases as words, Fitch and Trecartin compound them, play games with their sounds and meanings and construct them into directed strings akin to sentences. They manipulate these furnishings, tools, construction materials, articles of clothing, etc. and reconstitute them as precariously balanced tableaux. The distinct outline of a figure is often elided, however there is usually the presence of a protagonist in the work, rendered through an associative sequence of formal juxtapositions that is left to the viewer to read.

The distinct outline of a figure is often elided, however there is usually the presence of a protagonist in the work, rendered through an associative sequence of formal juxtapositions that is left to the viewer to read.

The process by which things mediate ideas in these works constitutes a conceptual frame around the sculptures which sets into view the extra-dimensional conditions of time and potentiality that are essential components of reading a mediated world.
Over their ten years of collaboration, Fitch and Trecartin have developed synchronic languages that shuffle through multiple, fluid registers: a sculpture that functions as set, prop, relic, decoration; a movie conceived as a movie and as something to be shared socially as a container to hold other artworks. Here, Trecartin’s videos from Any Ever provide a context for their three-dimensional works that emphasizes how the artists’s interwoven practices frequently embed themselves in one another.

An exhibition of Fitch and Trecartin is important for numerous — but two very important — reasons. First, their work is exemplary of MAMA’s policy themes of ‘Trashiness’ and ‘Culture of Darkness,’ in which MAMA researches how commodification and a new standard of norms and values settle in general culture in an almost heedless way.

An exhibition of Fitch and Trecartin is important for numerous — but two very important — reasons. First, their work is exemplary of MAMA’s policy themes of ‘Trashiness’ and ‘Culture of Darkness,’ in which MAMA researches how commodification and a new standard of norms and values settle in general culture in an almost heedless way.

Second, these artists are influential representatives of a generation of artists who consider the creation of new worlds and of a set of values in which other people perform important roles in their own artistic practices. The experience of the visitor is one of the central themes in their work. They often work with other artists that participate in large collaborations between production assistants, consultants and actors.

Lizzie Fitch (USA, 1981) makes sculptures, participates in nearly all aspects of producing Ryan Trecartin’s movies, and maintains a transdisciplinary practice rooted in deep collaboration with other artists as well as creative, commercial entities. In the summer of 2011,Fitch worked with the publishing collective DIS Magazine to create an office installation at Invisible-Exports gallery in New York. The actual use of the spaces catalyzed its formal and functional qualities equally. In 2010 Fitch collaborated with the fashion designer TELFAR to create a presentation for his Spring 2011 collection in New York which similar functioned both as a showroom and an autonomous sculptural installation.

Ryan Trecartin (USA, 1981) writes, directs, and edits movies that explore themes of identity, consumerism, language and technology. Since his sudden emergence at the 2006 Whitney Biennial with A Family Finds Entertainment (2004), his distinct voice in contemporary art has inspired a broad, intergenerational range of cultural consumers.

The showroom is open extra long during the RAW Art FAIR:
Wedneday 8 February 13:00-21:00
Thursday 9 February 13:00-21:00
Friday 10 February 13:00-21:00
Saturday 11 February 13:00-23:00