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Frieze Magazine | Shows | Dan Rees
http://www.frieze.com/shows/print_review/dan-rees/
Dan Rees
About this review
Tanya Leighton
Published on 14/10/13
By Matthew Burbidge
Dan Rees’s latest show at Tanya Leighton, ‘Space Invaders 2’,
consists of three works: a photomontage, a 15-minute video,
and a square Artex painting (Artex is a UK-invented surface
coating added to walls and ceilings to add texture, widely
used in the 1970s).
Space Invader (Monimbo Platz) (all works 2013) is composed
of 54 square inkjet prints arranged together so that they form
the outline of a Space Invader from the hit 1970s arcade
game. Nowadays the game carries a strong sense of nostalgia,
which is key to understanding this exhibition. We might even
‘Space Invaders 2’, 2013, exhibition
view
call it a kind of solidarity with the past. ‘Invader’ is also the
pseudonym of a French urban artist who documents his
Back to the main site
‘Invasions’ of cities across the world online – pictures of
Space Invaders composed out of coloured square tiles –
weather resistant and difficult to damage or remove.
The photos that constitute the montage are all taken in and
around Monimbo Platz, a small public space in the Berlin
neighbourhood of Lichtenberg, where, in 1985,
Nicaraguan-born artist Manuel García Moia created the
mural Nicaraguanisches Dorf – Monimbó 1978 (Nicaraguan
Village – Monimbó 1978). The mural was meant as an
expression of solidarity between the communist German
Democratic Republic and this Nicaraguan community, which
in 1978 rose up against the Somoza dictatorship.
Rees’s montage does not feature any pictures of the actual
mural because it has been removed: in its place is a sort of
information post, with images and text about the former
monument. Rees’s photos also generally denote absence and
transition. Transitional spaces are portrayed: overpasses,
railway tracks. Or people in transit, going shopping or further
afield. Temporary election posters, cars: a BMW estate
carries a legend on its rear window in a black typeface – ‘Ost
Wut Security Laden und Mehr’: which roughly translates as
‘Eastern Fury, Security Store and More’.
Nostalgia for the GDR, referred to as Ostalgie, is
accompanied by a bitterness toward the changes that have
taken place since the fall of the Berlin Wall: Monimbo Platz
was the site of a memorial to an uprising that ended in a
massacre of Nicaraguan Indians, many of them women and
children. In reunified Germany, this revolutionary event
appears forgotten. Rees’s montage of photos in frames
(square like the Invader’s tiles) is a monumental act of
1 of 2
Frieze, October 2013
10/17/13 12:07 PM
Frieze Magazine | Shows | Dan Rees
http://www.frieze.com/shows/print_review/dan-rees/
remembrance. To quote the Invader is to show solidarity with
those who oppose the established order. The photos show
what a political diatribe would not: waste, dilapidation,
transience, the tragic inability of the individual subject to
encompass political history. All one can do is try to
remember.
The video Laverbread is shot at Rees’s grandmother’s house
in South Wales, and is half composed of shots of Rees and his
unseen cameraman in the kitchen, as he brews cups of tea
and toasts wholemeal bread, which is then spread with
laverbread, the name of a Welsh speciality made of seaweed.
(Richard Burton called it ‘Welshman’s caviar’.) Laverbread
signifies a sense of home for Rees, but this home is a
melancholy place. We see the artist sitting with his
grandmother, who is struggling to open some junk mail. In
the foreground, a magazine with the title Enjoying Everyday
Life, still packed in its transparent envelope, lies on a shelf on
her walking frame. Henri Lefebvre’s 1971 book Everyday Life
in the Modern World could be a manifesto for Rees’s
practice, dedicated as it is to the ignored, the unnoticed. At
the end of the video the camera tilts up quite deliberately to
scan the Artex ceiling of the sitting room. The lens
thoughtfully follows the shell-like forms inscribed there.
Botticelli comes to mind. It seems logical to make an Artex
Painting, which derives its formal characteristics directly
from a type of plaster decoration strongly associated with
Britain’s downtrodden working class.
Matthew Burbidge
Frieze
3-4 Hardwick Street, London EC1R 4RB, 020 7833 7270
2 of 2
10/17/13 12:07 PM
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DAN
REES
by / par
Aude Launay
39
–
Whatever Works, or not !
Dan Rees
Cadmium Yellow, Medium Hue,
Flesh Tint, Dioxazine Purple,
Bright Aqua Green, Red
Vermillon, Payne’s Gray,
Phtalocyanine Green and a Little
Bit Of Black, 2010.
Acrylique sur toile et sur mur
/ Acrylic on canvas and wall.
Vue d'installation / Installation view
New Galerie, Paris.
Courtesy de l'artiste / the artist,
Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin,
New Galerie, Paris.
Les artistes conceptuels sont-ils doués pour le
ping-pong ? La possibilité de l'échec inhérente à l'œuvre
est-elle une qualité méta-esthétique de cette œuvre ?
Comment un facteur – au sens de porteur épistolaire
– peut-il déterminer une œuvre ? Le travail du jeune
berlinois Dan Rees pose de bien épineuses questions. À
commencer par celle-ci : à partir de quand peut-on qualifier de berlinois un artiste originaire du Pays de Galles ?
Considérons donc qu'il a émigré sur l'autre rive du Rhin
depuis suffisamment longtemps pour cela.
Répétition, reproduction et réinterprétation pourraient
se donner comme des mots-clés de la pratique de Rees.
L'art a une histoire et il produit des histoires. Les références sont ici toujours très
présentes, mais dans un
usage pratique loin de les
réduire à de simples citations. Ainsi, lorsqu'il défie
Jonathan Monk ou Simon
Starling au ping-pong
(Variable Peace, 2006),
Dan Rees réinterprète l'intérêt que Július Koller porte
à ce sport – Ping-Pong
Club, exposition de 1970
pour laquelle Koller invitait
les visiteurs à jouer avec
lui, Ping-Pong Monument
(U.F.O.), 1971, Ping-Pong
(U.F.O.), 2005, (Basel) Ping
Pong Cultural Situation,
2007, etc. – ainsi que les
onomatopées binaires d'Alighiero Boetti (Ping Pong,
1960) en conviant des artistes de la répétition, d'une
génération intermédiaire, à
converser tout en jouant.
Les vidéos auxquelles
ont donné lieu les parties
filmées oscillent entre le pur enregistrement d'un événement somme toute bien peu cinégénique et la datation
d'une sorte de passage de témoin entre artistes « conceptuels ». Toujours au rayon ping-pong, il est à mentionner
que Dan Rees a photographié une très jolie balle en gros
plan et a intitulé le cliché : Ryman vs Mangold (2005),
soit l'union d'un blanc parfaitement monochrome à
une courbe impeccable en un seul objet.
Parce qu'une battologie vaut mieux qu'un vulgaire pléonasme ou qu'une banale tautologie et parce que l'on sait
depuis 1967 que le véritable artiste est celui qui aide le
monde en révélant des vérités mystiques, A Good Idea Is A
Good Idea (2009) est peut-être, en effet, une bonne idée.
Dans cette série de peintures réalisées sur des pochettes du
white album des Beatles, Dan Rees reproduit ses tableaux
préférés : des Hockney, Mondrian, Malevitch, Klee, Thek,
et bien d'autres, à sa manière. Bien peint, mal peint,
repeint… Là n'est pas la question, même si quand même
le Peter Halley n'est pas très propret et que les Mondrian
présentent des empâtements un peu douteux. Ces images
« font image », elles sont toutes des hits même si elles
paradent habituellement plutôt sous forme de posters et
autres cartes postales cheap aux abords des grands musées que recopiées à main levée. Ce n'est pourtant pas la
première fois que Dan Rees massacre la peinture. Au sens
littéral, cette fois, lorsqu'il réalise ses Squash Paintings,
ces toiles blanches sur lesquelles il étale de l'acrylique
directement au tube avant de venir les coller sur le mur
adjacent pour créer en vis-à-vis deux peintures jumelles,
dont l'une, sans que l'on puisse préciser laquelle, est le négatif de l'autre.
Lors de la dernière FIAC, c'est
une série de toiles toutes apprêtées différemment et accrochées comme on n'ose
plus le faire, très proches
et les unes au-dessus des
autres, à la manière des
salons de peinture, qui en
prend pour son grade. Une
longue traînée de spray
noir les relie entre elles en
un geste narquois à l'impertinence toute juvénile et
pourtant non sans rappeler
certaines toiles des années
soixante de Martin Barré.
Untitled (2010) dénature
la peinture-objet en lui
ôtant son individualité mais
ne crée pas pour autant une
véritable installation, à cheval entre in situ et pièces
célibataires, à l'image du
Wall Painting (1972-2004)
de Richard Jackson pour
lequel ce dernier utilisa des
toiles comme pinceaux, les
faisant pivoter sur ellesmêmes, face au mur et fraîchement enduites de peinture. Le hasard a ici toute
sa place, pourtant il n'est
pas l'élément déterminant de ces peintures, et ce malgré le fait qu'il en conditionne l'apparence.
De même, Dan Rees cherche souvent la collaboration,
délibérée ou non, du public ou de tiers absolument
extérieurs au contexte de l'œuvre en question. Ainsi il
n'hésite pas à envoyer des cartes postales collées face à
face, ne laissant apparents que les deux côtés écrits, et
les adressant à deux personnes différentes, d'un côté au
lieu d'exposition sensé présenter la pièce et, de l'autre, à
un inconnu tiré au hasard dans l'annuaire ou habitant la
même rue, un peu plus loin. Et comme le dit le titre de
la pièce, The Postman's Decision Is Final. La pièce serat-elle réalisée même si aucune des missives n'arrive dans
l'exposition ? C'est une autre histoire.
02 n°57
Printemps 2011
Zero Deux, 2011
–
40
DAN
B
REES
Whatever Works, or not !
Are conceptual artists gifted when it comes to pingpong? Is the possibility of failure inherent in the work a
meta-aesthetic quality of that work? How can a facteur—
in the sense of mailman—determine a work?1 The work
of the young Berlin artist Dan Rees raises some quite
thorny issues. Starting with the following one: when exactly can you start describing an artist hailing from Wales
as a Berliner? So let us reckon that he emigrated to the
other bank of the Rhine long enough ago to be one.
Repetition, reproduction and re-integration might all
serve as keywords for Rees’s activities. Art has a (hi)story
and it produces (hi)stories. References here are invariably
very present, but in a practical way, far from reducing
them to mere quotations.
So when he challenges
Jonathan Monk and Simon
Starling to a game of pingpong (Variable Peace,
2006), Dan Rees re-interprets Julius Koller’s interest
in this sport—Ping-Pong
Club, the 1970 exhibition
for which Koller invited
visitors to play with him,
Ping-Pong
Monument
(U.F.O.), 1971, Ping-Pong
(U.F.O.), 2005, (Basel)
Ping
Pong
Cultural
Situation, 2007, and so
on—as much as he does
Alighiero Boetti’s forms of
binary onomatopoeia—Ping Pong, 1960—, by inviting
artists using repetition, from an in-beteeen generation, to
talk while playing. The videos which the filmed games
gave rise to waver between the pure recording of an
event which, when all is said and done, is not particularly
cinegenic and the dating of a sort of baton-passing
between “conceptual” artists. Still on the subject of pingpong, it is worth mentioning that Dan Rees photographed
a very pretty ball close-up, and titled the photo: Ryman vs
Mangold (2005), namely, the union of a perfectly monochrome white and a flawless curve, in a single object.
Because battology2 is worth more than a vulgar pleonasm or a common-or-garden tautology, and because we
have known since 1967 that the real artist is the one who
helps the world by revealing mystic truths, A Good Idea
Is A Good Idea (2009) is actually perhaps a good idea.
In this series of paintings made on covers of the Beatles’
White Album, Dan Rees reproduces his favourite pictures,
Hockneys, Mondrians, Maleviches, Klees, Theks, and
many more, in his own way. Well painted, badly painted,
re-painted… This is not the issue, even if, it must be said,
the Peter Halley is not very neat and the Mondrians show
slightly dubious impastos. These images “make an image”, they are all hits even if they usually tend to be displayed in the form of cheap posters and post cards in the
vicinity of great museums, rather than copied freehand.
But this is not the first time that Dan Rees has massacred
painting. In the literal sense, this time around, when he
makes his Squash Paintings, those white canvases on
which he spreads acrylic paint directly from the tube before sticking them on the adjacent wall to create two twin
paintings, face to face, one of which—though you cannot
tell precisely which—is the negative of the other.
At the last International Contemporary Art Fair
[FIAC], it was a series of canvases all differently prepared
and hung the way people no longer dare to do, very close,
and one above the other, in the manner of painting salons, that was hauled over the coals. A long trail of black
spray linked them together in a snide gesture with all the
impertinence of youth, and yet calling to mind some of
Martin Barré’s canvases of the 1960s. Untitled (2010)
Dan Rees
Untitled, 2010.
19 toiles enduites, peinture
en spray / 19 primed canvases,
spray paint. FIAC 2010,
Cour Carrée du Louvre, Paris.
Photo : Aurélien Mole.
Courtesy de l'artiste / the artist,
Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin,
New Galerie, Paris.
adulterates the painting object by removing its individuality, but it does not, for all that, create a real installation,
somewhere between in situ and bachelor pieces, like
Richard Jackson’s Wall Painting (1972-2004), for which
this latter used canvases like brushes, making them pivot
upon themselves, facing the wall and freshly covered
with paint. Chance played a major role here, yet it is not
the decisive factor of these paintings, and this despite the
fact that it conditions their appearance.
Dan Rees likewise often seeks out the cooperation,
intentional or otherwise, of the public, or of third parties,
completely outside the context of the work in question. So
he does not hesitate to send post cards stuck face to face,
leaving just the two written sides showing, and addressing
them to two different people, on the one hand the exhibition venue meant to be showing the piece and, on the
other, to a stranger chosen randomly from a telephone
directory, or living in the same street, a bit further down.
And as the work’s title puts it, The Postman’s Decision
is Final. Will the piece be produced even if none of the
missives reach the show? That is a whole other story.
–
1. French facteur means both ‘factor’ and ‘postman’.
2. (Unnecessary) repetition.
Portrait
Dan Rees
WATCHLIST
Künstler, die uns aufgefallen sind:
Dan Rees
W
as macht ein junger Mann, um
in der Kunstwelt Fuß zu fassen?
Bei Dan Rees lautete die Antwort Pingpong. Für seine Serie „Variable
Peace“, die er vor vier Jahren begann, bat er
Kollegen aus der Riege bekannter Konzeptkünstler zum Match vor laufender Kamera an
die Tischtennisplatte: Jonathan Monk oder
Simon Starling. Die sportliche Performance
funktioniert als witzige Metapher für die Position des Nachwuchskünstlers, der sich an
den Vorgängern orientiert und, hoffentlich,
die Bälle irgendwann zurückspielt. Nebenbei
brachte ihm dieser Sport einen Platz in Starlings Meisterklasse an der Städelschule ein,
wo Rees im vergangenen Jahr abschloss.
Kalte Strategie möchte man dem gebürtigen Waliser dabei aber trotzdem nicht
unterstellen, echte Karriereristen sind nicht
dermaßen verspielt. Dass jeder, der ihn kennenlernt, ihn fördern möchte, liegt wohl eher
an der sympathischen und intelligenten Art,
mit der der 1982 Geborene sich seinen Weg
von der bodenständigen Provinzstadt Swansea in die Welt der zeitgenössischen Kunst
bahnte. „Meiner Familie, na ja, ist dieses
ganze Kunstsystem eher fremd. Die fragen
mich höchstens, ob ich beim Streichen des
Wohnzimmers helfe, ich sei doch Künstler“,
sagt Rees beim Treffen in der Hinterhauswohnung in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg, die ihm
als Atelier dient.
Rees machte den Clash der Milieus früh
zu Kunst. Er lud Tacita Dean ein, eine Ausstellung in der Wohnung seiner Großmutter
zu kuratieren. Ein anderes Mal fotografierte
er sich selbst mit einem Schild und der Frage:
„What is Gillian Wearing?“ – und verwan-
Ganz links: „What is Gillian Wearing“ (Detail), 2005, Farbfotografie, 45 x
acht C-Prints, je 46 x 37 cm. „The Artist’s Artist’s Artist“ (Detail), 2010,
44 cm. „Plasticine Painting“, 2010, Knetmasse, Holz, 70 x 70 cm. „Variable
A Good Idea (The Splash)“, 2009, Acrylfarbe, Vinylschallplatte (Beatles:
26
m1010_026-027_Watchlist_NEU.indd 26
06.09.2010 13:58:08 Uhr
Monopol - Magazin für Kunst und Leben, October 2010
65 cm
Stuh
Peac
„Whi
45 x
010,
able
atles:
65 cm. Mitte, von oben links im Uhrzeigersinn: „Short Stories“, 2009,
Stuhl: 77 x 53 x 60 cm, Knetmasseskulptur auf Plattenspieler: 28 x 34 x
Peace vs. Jonathan Monk“, 2006, Video, circa 9 min. „A Good Idea Is
„White Album“), Plattenhülle, 35 x 35 x 3 cm
Hendrik Kerstens, „Bag“, 2007, C-Print/Dibond, 100x80 cm, Courtesy: Witzenhausen Gallery Amsterdam/New York
delte so das Problem des naiven Neuankömmlings in der Kunst in einen Kalauer.
Als Rees, genervt vom anstrengenden und
teuren London, 2005 nach Berlin zog, wurde
er Assistent bei Jonathan Monk. Dessen entspannte Art, Alltag und Kunst zu verbinden,
hat ihn beeindruckt und bestätigt. „Es muss
nicht immer Lacan sein.“
Die aktuelle Ausstellung in der Berliner
Tanya-Leighton-Galerie schlägt wieder die
Brücke zu Swansea. Dan Rees zeigt dort
eine Serie von Gemälden, die das Muster im
Putz aufnehmen, auf das er in der Wohnung
seiner Großmutter immer starrte, wenn er
im Bett lag: „Diese geschwungenen, sich
überlagernden Muster, die man mit speziellen Schabern macht, sind faszinierend
– und komplett aus der Mode gekommen.
Ich reproduziere das in Öl. Zu meiner
Überraschung habe ich’s fast so gut hinbekommen wie die Maurer.“
Das Ergebnis sieht aus wie ein Update der
Op-Art im Geist der aktuellen Renaissance
der Abstraktion. Nicht der einzige Fall, bei
dem Rees aus einem konzeptuellen Scherz
am Ende ästhetisch ansprechende Bilder
produziert. Unwiderstehlich sind auch seine
Knetgemälde. Aus Flecken der bunten Masse
kombiniert Rees Tupfenbilder wie von Ernst
Wilhelm Nay. Dazu passen seine Skulpturen,
die er gern auf Plattenspielern rotieren lässt.
Unter dem spielerischen Understatement
blitzt große bildhauerische Sensibilität auf.
„French Cricket“ ist der Titel seiner aktuellen Ausstellung. „Kricket ist so ein uncooler Sport, das gefällt mir. Und ‚French cricket‘ nennt man die einfache Kinderversion
davon“, sagt er. Für die Schau verwandelte er
Kricketbeinschoner in Wandreliefs, formte
einen berühmten britischen Krickethelden
aus Ton, und ein nachdenklicher Frosch tritt
als Dan Rees’ Alter Ego auf.
Die Kunst, findet er, sei ein seltsames
Feld. Man könne eigentlich machen, was
man wolle, halte sich aber doch ständig an
Regeln, die das System vorgebe, folge Schulen und Moden.
Seine eigenen Experimente in dieser
Branche kommen ihm manchmal vor wie
eine anthropologische Studie. Nur dass er
sich als Forscher nicht ganz ernst nimmt.
Mit großen Augen steht Dan Rees da, schaut
um sich, spielt herum und, ups: schon wieder
ein Werk. Und schon wieder kein schlechtes.
Elke Buhr
AUF LEBEN
UND TOD
DER MENSCH IN
MALEREI UND
FOTOGRAFIE
Die Sammlung Teutloff zu Gast im
WALLRAF-RICHARTZ-MUSEUM
in Köln
17. 09.2010 – 09.01.2011
Dan Rees wird vertreten von der Galerie Tanya
Leighton, Berlin. Rees’ aktuelle Ausstellung dort:
„French Cricket“, bis 23. Oktober
TEUTLOFF PHOTO +
VIDEO COLLECTION
www.teutloff.net
m1010_026-027_Watchlist_NEU.indd 27
27
06.09.2010 13:58:18 Uhr
Artforum, April 2010
From:
Subject:
Date:
To:
Reply-To:
Art-Agenda <[email protected]flux.com>
Dan Rees at Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin
September 9, 2010 7:56:21 PM GMT+02:00
r.o.fi[email protected]
Art-Agenda <[email protected]flux.com>
September 9, 2010
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Dan Rees at Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin
French Cricket
11 September – 23 October 2010
Preview:
Friday, 10 September, 6–9pm
Kurfürstenstraße 156
10785 Berlin
www.tanyaleighton.com
Tanya Leighton Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Dan Rees. This is his first solo exhibition at
the gallery.
"Keep your art soft and sweet. You might have to eat it." Inscribed in white cursive letters on a bright blue cake, the
words from this 2005 piece encapsulate the spirit behind much of Dan Rees's young, yet prolific, production. Filled with
references to Conceptual art practices—Daniel Buren's legendary stripes that sloppily spill over onto the wall behind badly
painted copies ("Two Stripey Paintings," 2009) or analog media like slide and 16 mm film projections and B&W
documentary photography, as in the 2006 series, "Black and White Things in Black and White,"— his work is accessible to
a public specialized in rooting out its numerous art historical references and citations. And yet the impulse behind such an
exercise is a far more humbling (and ultimately ambitious) process of shifting through the muddle of what has been
handed down to a young artist to eventually make something of one's own: in this case, something funny, and gently
irreverent, and earnest.
With his most recent work, Rees aspires to a move away from the hermeticism and elitism of the art world, with
to the real world with its popular cultural references—well-attired '80s football Casuals or cricketer David Gower's
hair to name a few—and messy, dirty materials like plasticine or the artex plaster that adorns his grandmother's
Wales and thousands of other working class interiors across the UK. The protagonist of the current exhibition is a
a return
unruly
ceiling in
frog
named Charles, an erudite dandy who engages in posh and leisurely activities like playing cricket (badly of course,
because he is French) and reading poetry, although he is eternally frustrated by a longing to fulfill his creative potential,
trapped as he is by intellectual detachment and the physical constraints of the tiny monitor that contains his digitally
constructed image. Nearby a disembodied clay head spins around on a turntable perched atop a homemade totem pole—a
vernacular art for m legible to even the most unaccustomed contemporary art viewer—in a vertiginous movement Rees
describes as a feeling of freedom "between what you believe in and what you are forced to accept, between your ideas
and dreams and the dead forms and phantoms." It's like killing your idols but doing it softly.
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Mousse, Issue 18, April/May 2009
Map, Issue 17, Spring 2009
ARTISSIMA 16: The International Fair of Contemporary Art in Torino, 2009
Frieze, Issue 112, January-February 2008
‘Dan Rees: Return Journey’, by Adam Carr, booklet for Things I Did When I Was A
Young Man, Mission Gallery, Swansea, Wales, 22 September - 3 November 2007