A Fallen Type
Laura Schawelka
November 20 – December 29, 2021
Opening Reception Sat November 20 / 6-9pm
A Fallen Type
Laura Schawelka
November 20 – December 29, 2021
Opening Reception Sat November 20 / 6-9pm
Schedule Appointment
Laura Schawelka
November 20 – December 29, 2021
Opening Reception Sat November 20 / 6-9pm
Schedule Appointment
In his 1887 book “A History of the Old English Letter Foundries” Talbot Baines Reed described a wondrous discovery in an incunabula from 1476: an “accidental impression of a type, pulled up from its place in the course of printing by the ink-ball, and laid at length upon the face of the forme, thus leaving its exact profile indented upon the page.” If a printer didn’t pay attention such a fallen type was printed and created a blind spot in the final book. However, while parts of the text are obscured, they provide a rare insight into the circumstances of the book’s production.
A fallen type marks the starting point of Laura Schawelka’s exhibition of the same name. Her new body of work searches for various forms of transmission errors and imaginary authenticity in different forms of reproductions, which unmask the mode of production and interrupt the digestion of a medium’s message. For instance, several works in the exhibition show unintentional or overlooked reflections of photographers or their studios in commercial images. Contrary to the statement of a painter in an intended reflection in a baroque still life these inadvertencies allow a glimpse into the creation of images in our capitalist system.
In another work Schawelka shows the first copy of the famous bust of Nefertiti, made in 1913 by Tina Haim-Wentscher, a young expressionist sculptor in Berlin. Since the surface of the bust is far too delicate to allow a cast from the original, Haim was commissioned to make a no-contact copy solely based on visual clues by James Simon - the bust’s original owner – before it was presented to the public. It is unclear why and by whom it was decided to reconstruct the lost parts and complete Nefertiti’s face, erasing the flaws of the ancient bust: Haim’s version of the queen has both eyes and both ears and offers an almost uncanny interpretation of the original that many unauthorized copies followed and follow until today. Here, the replica outstripped and superseded the original.
The invention of letterpress printing in the 15th century cultivated a new idea: The notion of the categorical difference between original and copy. The widespread availability of knowledge in printed form also gave rise to woodblock printed illustrations – often copies of paintings – and hence to the concept that both the written word and other forms of artistic expression are actually reproducible. This also came on the heels of a commercial change: the creation of a mass market of knowledge. Like many other similar technological shifts after it, it’s birth brought both democratization and monetization of information. In Schawelka’s work glitches and flaws destabilize this dynamic and question the relationship between duplication, interpretation and reproduction and their consumption.
Laura Schawelka lives and works in Berlin. After studying at Städelschule, Frankfurt she received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia in 2015. She was an artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris from 2017-18 and in 2019 she received the Q21 viennacontemporary Prize. This year she was awarded a research and travel grant by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Eikon, Vienna; FILIALE, Frankfurt; fiebach, minninger, Cologne and at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen.
This exhibition was made possible with support by
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A fallen type marks the starting point of Laura Schawelka’s exhibition of the same name. Her new body of work searches for various forms of transmission errors and imaginary authenticity in different forms of reproductions, which unmask the mode of production and interrupt the digestion of a medium’s message. For instance, several works in the exhibition show unintentional or overlooked reflections of photographers or their studios in commercial images. Contrary to the statement of a painter in an intended reflection in a baroque still life these inadvertencies allow a glimpse into the creation of images in our capitalist system.
In another work Schawelka shows the first copy of the famous bust of Nefertiti, made in 1913 by Tina Haim-Wentscher, a young expressionist sculptor in Berlin. Since the surface of the bust is far too delicate to allow a cast from the original, Haim was commissioned to make a no-contact copy solely based on visual clues by James Simon - the bust’s original owner – before it was presented to the public. It is unclear why and by whom it was decided to reconstruct the lost parts and complete Nefertiti’s face, erasing the flaws of the ancient bust: Haim’s version of the queen has both eyes and both ears and offers an almost uncanny interpretation of the original that many unauthorized copies followed and follow until today. Here, the replica outstripped and superseded the original.
The invention of letterpress printing in the 15th century cultivated a new idea: The notion of the categorical difference between original and copy. The widespread availability of knowledge in printed form also gave rise to woodblock printed illustrations – often copies of paintings – and hence to the concept that both the written word and other forms of artistic expression are actually reproducible. This also came on the heels of a commercial change: the creation of a mass market of knowledge. Like many other similar technological shifts after it, it’s birth brought both democratization and monetization of information. In Schawelka’s work glitches and flaws destabilize this dynamic and question the relationship between duplication, interpretation and reproduction and their consumption.
Laura Schawelka lives and works in Berlin. After studying at Städelschule, Frankfurt she received an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia in 2015. She was an artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris from 2017-18 and in 2019 she received the Q21 viennacontemporary Prize. This year she was awarded a research and travel grant by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions of her work have been held at Eikon, Vienna; FILIALE, Frankfurt; fiebach, minninger, Cologne and at the Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen.
This exhibition was made possible with support by
UR-TEMPLE
Ian James
October 9 – Nov 14, 2021
Opening Reception Sat Oct 9 / 6-9pm
UR-TEMPLE
Ian James
October 9 – Nov 14, 2021
Ian James
October 9 – Nov 14, 2021
She bathes.
Separation dissolves the State as the mechanical
kingdom,
and has chemical effects on intelligence.
Here the sheaf idea can illustrate the opening of
new sites,
new syntheses,
the grand vision of generalizing topology.
She sings of instinct
- Maure Coise, Geophilosophical Branding
The Fulcrum is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Ian James, collectively calle UR-TEMPLE. The work is an exploration of the metaphysics of technology and its integration into the human body as a support structure for life and as a means to facilitate increasingly more fluid and efficient exchange. A number of the works in the exhibition derive from the artist and his partner’s recent experience of having a baby and the uneven support for mothers, infants, and their partners amidst societal expectations for a non-interruption of labor output.
In her book, Cosmophenomenology, Wangyoung Kim theorizes on our universe’s omnipresent dark energy as a carrier and inscriber of consciousness atop electrons. This theory allows for the consciousness to exist within all matter, recycling endlessly. The work is interested in how this cosmological constant of consciousness provides a metaphysic and a will for our electronic devices, rendering them as spiritual technology given electricity’s role (through electrons) in consciousness.
The exhibition features a large scale photograph of the California State General Services Administration building in Sacramento, and smaller photographs of a fetal heart monitor, breast pumps, bottle sterilizers, and zero gravity outdoor recliners in cast aluminum frames. A custom chaise paired with a virtual reality environment invites participants to loiter an astral plane surrounded by images falling in low gravity. The images derive from the artist’s archive of healing and spiritual technology-related photographs. Within this virtual space, images are given a bodily monumentality for the viewer to position themselves alongside as they transit. Finally, the artist has produced a new coin in the form of a bathroom token in an edition of 3000. The token is usable for restroom access within the Far East Plaza.
Ian James lives and works in Los Angeles. He has had solo exhibitions at Five Car Garage (Santa Monica, CA), Hernando’s Hideaway (Miami, FL), and Vacancy (Los Angeles) and participated in two-person and group exhibitions at Holiday Forever (Jackson, WY) the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, the UNLV Barrick Museum, Roberts Projects (LA), REDCAT (LA), Self Actualization (Houston), and was an artist in residence at SÍM in Reykjavik, Iceland and the The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY).
Separation dissolves the State as the mechanical
kingdom,
and has chemical effects on intelligence.
Here the sheaf idea can illustrate the opening of
new sites,
new syntheses,
the grand vision of generalizing topology.
She sings of instinct
- Maure Coise, Geophilosophical Branding
The Fulcrum is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Ian James, collectively calle UR-TEMPLE. The work is an exploration of the metaphysics of technology and its integration into the human body as a support structure for life and as a means to facilitate increasingly more fluid and efficient exchange. A number of the works in the exhibition derive from the artist and his partner’s recent experience of having a baby and the uneven support for mothers, infants, and their partners amidst societal expectations for a non-interruption of labor output.
In her book, Cosmophenomenology, Wangyoung Kim theorizes on our universe’s omnipresent dark energy as a carrier and inscriber of consciousness atop electrons. This theory allows for the consciousness to exist within all matter, recycling endlessly. The work is interested in how this cosmological constant of consciousness provides a metaphysic and a will for our electronic devices, rendering them as spiritual technology given electricity’s role (through electrons) in consciousness.
The exhibition features a large scale photograph of the California State General Services Administration building in Sacramento, and smaller photographs of a fetal heart monitor, breast pumps, bottle sterilizers, and zero gravity outdoor recliners in cast aluminum frames. A custom chaise paired with a virtual reality environment invites participants to loiter an astral plane surrounded by images falling in low gravity. The images derive from the artist’s archive of healing and spiritual technology-related photographs. Within this virtual space, images are given a bodily monumentality for the viewer to position themselves alongside as they transit. Finally, the artist has produced a new coin in the form of a bathroom token in an edition of 3000. The token is usable for restroom access within the Far East Plaza.
Ian James lives and works in Los Angeles. He has had solo exhibitions at Five Car Garage (Santa Monica, CA), Hernando’s Hideaway (Miami, FL), and Vacancy (Los Angeles) and participated in two-person and group exhibitions at Holiday Forever (Jackson, WY) the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, the UNLV Barrick Museum, Roberts Projects (LA), REDCAT (LA), Self Actualization (Houston), and was an artist in residence at SÍM in Reykjavik, Iceland and the The Wassaic Project (Wassaic, NY).
All Paths Connect at Some Point or Another
Maude Arsenault
Michael Tyrone Delaney
Rebekka Deubner
Daniela Ruiz de Esparza
Thomas Locke Hobbs
Sara Perovic
Kisshomaru Shimamura
September 12 - October 3, 2021
