Thomas Bayrle, Ann Lislegaard, and Ultra-red
28 May to 2 August 2009
Social and psychological realities are abstracted in different ways by the artists brought together for this exhibition. The works shown have been produced through a process analogous to elasticising – stretching, squeezing and transforming. The collective Ultra-red draws sound out of political struggles, while Ann Lislegaard compresses the soundtracks of science fiction films, and Thomas Bayrle models molecular structure from highway systems.
Thomas Bayrle (born 1937, living in Frankfurt) has been working since the mid-sixties and is now recognized as key to a European kind of Pop Art. In Bayrle’s work, single units are replicated and stretched into a mass, describing a world suspended between positive collectivism and deadening uniformity. His sculptural works and the film Autobahn-Kopf in the ground floor galleries use the metaphor of the highway to characterise a state of modernity where we are ‘racing to stand still’.
The recent works of Ann Lislegaard (born 1962, living in Copenhagen) describe worlds that, like Thomas Bayrle’s, hover between utopia and dystopia, and refract reality through the imaginary. Her animation and sound works in the first and second floor galleries reduce classic works of science fiction to bare components in order to depict geographies that are simultaneously mental and physical.
Ultra-red was founded in Los Angeles in 1994. It currently comprises nine artists and political activists who use sound to engage in community struggles in Europe and North America, for example in issues of social housing and immigration. During a residency at Raven Row they have hosted workshops with local activists using the art of sound to consider methods of community activism. In the shopfront gallery they will collectively develop their research, adding sound recordings over the course of the exhibition.
In an essay to accompany the exhibition, writer and critic Lars Bang Larsen considers the philosophy of the elastic, and elaborates on the role of motion, vibration and nervous energy in these works and the wider culture.
Ann Lislegaard's participation was supported by the Danish Arts Council Committee for Visual Arts.
Selected text from the exhibition guide
Thomas Bayrle
Exhibition view, Raven Row, 2009
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Thomas Bayrle
SARS Formation (modified), 2008
Pasteboard, wood
360 x 480 x 450 cm
Courtesy Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich; Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Thomas Bayrle
SARS Formation (modified), 2008
Pasteboard, wood
360 x 480 x 450 cm
Courtesy Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich; Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Thomas Bayrle
SARS Formation (modified), 2008
Pasteboard, wood
360 x 480 x 450 cm
Courtesy Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich; Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Thomas Bayrle
Autostrada, 2003
Cardboard box, Styrofoam, masking tape
340 x 730 x 320 cm
Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Thomas Bayrle
Autostrada, 2003
Cardboard box, Styrofoam, masking tape
340 x 730 x 320 cm
Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Thomas Bayrle
Autostrada, 2003
Cardboard box, Styrofoam, masking tape
340 x 730 x 320 cm
Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Thomas Bayrle
Series of small cardboard models, 1990-2008
Dimensions variable
Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Thomas Bayrle with Stefan Seibert
Autobahn-Kopf [Motorway-head], 1988/89
16mm film, 9’, b/w, sound
Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Thomas Bayrle with Stefan Seibert
Autobahn-Kopf [Motorway-head], 1988/89
16mm film, 9’, b/w, sound
Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Gateway (Colours and Places of Bellona) # 4, 2007
C-print on Kodak Endurance paper
203 x 80 cm
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Crystal World (after J.G. Ballard), 2006
2-channel 3D animation, b/w, sound, dimensions variable
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Crystal World (after J.G. Ballard), 2006
2-channel 3D animation, b/w, sound, dimensions variable
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Crystal World (after J.G. Ballard), 2006
2-channel 3D animation, b/w, sound, dimensions variable
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Bellona Mirror, 2008
Text sandblasted onto mirror
203 x 91 cm
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Left Hand of Darkness (after Ursula K. Le Guin), 2008
3-channel digital animation, sound, dimensions variable
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam; Murray Guy, New York
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Left Hand of Darkness (after Ursula K. Le Guin), 2008
3-channel digital animation, sound, dimensions variable
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam; Murray Guy, New York
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Left Hand of Darkness (after Ursula K. Le Guin), 2008
3-channel digital animation, sound, dimensions variable
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam; Murray Guy, New York
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Science Fiction_3114, 2009
Sound installation, 28’, loop
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam; Murray Guy, New York
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ann Lislegaard
Science Fiction_3114, 2009
Sound installation, 28’, loop
Courtesy Galerie Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam; Murray Guy, New York
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ultra-red
School of Echoes, 2009
Installation view, Raven Row
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ultra-red
School of Echoes, 2009
Installation view, Raven Row
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith
Ultra-red public event for School of Echoes, 2009
Ultra-red
School of Echoes, 2009
Installation view, Raven Row
Photograph by Marcus J. Leith