YURI LEIDERMAN | BALLAD OF SNW FALLING INTO THE SEA
CHRISTINE REBET | SHADOWS OF FAMILY TREE
MLADEN STROPNIK WITH JEN LIU AND MARKO TADIĆ | 13 FIFTEEN
June 21 – August 29, 2020
YURI LEIDERMAN | BALLAD OF SNOW FALLING INTO THE SEA
Gregor Podnar presents a selection of new and recent paintings, dating from 2016, by Yuri Leiderman that are woven together by the exhibition title taken from a featuring artwork. Leiderman’s latest works fuse narratives, simultaneously familiar and peculiar, with abstraction and figuration. The inspiration for his chosen title can be traced back to his preoccupation with Ancient Greek mythology and specifically a metaphor found in Homer’s epic poem “The Iliad”.
“Homer describes arrows flying through the air during battle like snow falling into the sea. In another excerpt Homer describes a God appearing and disappearing in quite the same words. The point is that since I was born in Odessa, I’ve also had the opportunity to observe sometimes during winter, the whiteness of snow falling from the sky and melting into the green water of the sea. And that struck me. More than 2500 years divide myself and Homer yet we both experienced how the snow falls into the sea, and maybe we contemplated the same things whilst observing it – about finality and eternity, about the small circle of our lives between appearing and disappearing, and about fight, tenderness, friendship, uprisings, love and hate, which determine that short moment.” (Yuri Leiderman, 2020)
Yuri Leiderman, artist and writer, (b. 1963, Odessa, Ukraine) lives and works in Berlin, Germany. During the 1980-90s he lived in Moscow and was a member of the so-called “Moscow conceptualism” art circle. In 1987, together with S. Anufriev and P. Pepperstein, he organised the group “Inspection Medical Hermeneutics”, which he later departed from in 1990. Leiderman has taken part in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Venice Biennale (2003 and 1993); 1st European biennial Manifesta (Rotterdam, 1996); and biennales in Istanbul (1992); Sydney (1998); and Shanghai (2004). During the 2000s, Leiderman worked on a series tableau named “Geopoetics” and, together with Andrei Silvestrov, on the cinema series “Birmingham Ornament”, with “Birmingham Ornaments -2” (2013) awarded a special prize from the Roma Film Festival in 2013. He is the author of several books of essays, notes and rhythmic prose. His book “Olor”, won the the Russian Andrey Bely Literature Prize in 2005. His most recent book, “Moabit Chronic” (2017) was shortlisted in 2018 for the NOS Literary Prize.
CHRISTINE REBET | SHADOWS OF FAMILY TREE
Sixteen years after Christine Rebet’s first show with Gregor Podnar, the gallery is pleased to present a selection of moving pictures and drawings with “Shadows of Family Tree”. Drawing is central to Rebet’s visual language and practice, which she frequently develops into animated films, sculptures, immersive installations and performance art. Rebet explores the unconscious and creates tales that are both anti-heroic and satirical. She uses the lens of history – reflecting on past events and traumas, both personal and collective, whilst painstakingly working with the traditional techniques of early animation – as a means of assessing the current conditions of shared historical narratives, cultures and environments. The exhibition will screen three of Rebet’s animated films: “The Square” (2011); “In the Soldier’s Head” (2015); and “Breathe In, Breathe Out” (2019) as well as some related drawings.
Christine Rebet (b. 1971 in Lyon, France) lives and works in Paris, France and New York, USA. Rebet achieved her MFA at Columbia University (New York, 2011) and her BA at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design (London, 1996). Rebet’s solo exhibitions include, Parasol unit (London, 2020); Bureau (New York, 2018; 2015); Grieder Contemporary (Zurich, 2014); and Marvelli Gallery Project Room (New York, 2011) amongst others.
Her work and performances have been featured in numerous group shows, including, French Institute Alliance Française (New York, 2019); LACE (Los Angeles, 2016); Kunsthal Gregor Podnar | Alt-Moabit 110 | 10559 Berlin | Germany | tel: +49 30 259 346 51 | berlin@gregorpodnar.com | www.gregorpodnar.com KAdE (Amersfoort, 2015); UKS (Oslo, 2012); Institute of Contemporary Art (Singapore, 2011); Cartier Foundation (Paris, 2011); and Shanghai Art Museum (2008). Rebet’s films have been screened at international events and festivals including, Foundation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (Paris, 2019); Hong Kong Film Festival (2016); Husets Biograf (Copenhagen, 2010); Berlinale Short Film Festival (Berlin, 2008); and Modern Museet (Stockholm, 2008). Rebet’s work appears in the collections of Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France); MAC VAL| Musée d’art contemporain du Val-de-Marne (Vitry-sur-Seine, France); as well as KADIST (Paris, France; San Francisco, USA). With special thanks to Bureau, New York.
MLADEN STROPNIK WITH JEN LIU AND MARKO TADIĆ | 13 FIFTEEN
Mladen Stropnik began his career investigating the extended field of painting, influenced by the punk rock music of the 90s (the band Res Nullius) and the aesthetics of early underground music videos from the 80s, he has developed since mid 2000 an intriguing body of works including short video clips, drawing, painting, performance, and sculpture. The figure of the artist with a masked face played a leading role in Stropnik’s early short narratives and depictions, and shifted in the last years from the anonymised artist body to the filming of a particular, often bizarre or humorous action. Actions of everyday life turn into Stropnik’s day dreams of desire, curiosity, fear, redundancy, joy, and so forth, which one can read also as a subconscious comment on a given society.
“When Stropnik’s works open the world of the unconscious, they do so via the classic topoi of the psychopathology of everyday life: dreams, slips, jokes. Thus, a disquieting moment intrudes into the trivial, everyday sequences, interrupting the surface of ‘normal’ functioning and making our everyday life more dynamic. This dimension of Stropnik’s work has various outputs, from ubiquitous humour, whose immense insightfulness expresses thoughts not welcomed by society, to darker, almost hallucinatory works in which a traumatic core is inscribed on the surface of language.” (Vladimir Vidmar 2014)
Collaboration within many of his video clips and the need for sharing ideas are an important base of Stropnik’s endeavour. Highlighting this practice, Stropnik invited New York-based Jen Liu and Marko Tadić, who lives in Zagreb, to join this exhibition project. Besides the selection of Mladen Stropnik’s film works, objects, and drawings, we are pleased to announce “The Red Detachment of Women” (2015/2020) by Jen Liu, a choreographed film inspired by Madame Mao’s 1970 ballet of the same title, which functions simultaneously as a performance for a theatrical audience as well as a training manual for workers of an industrial pork processing plant; and Marko Tadić’s animated film “I speak true things” (2010), which explores the notion of Utopia and its existence, the abstract animation symbolising the freedom of ideas and the possibility of the imagined places cities, and buildings found in his drawings existing in reality.
Mladen Stropnik (b. 1977 in Slovenj Gradec, Slovenia) lives and works in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Stropnik has participated in various solo and group exhibitions within Slovenia and internationally including, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum (California, 2018); Project Space DUM (Ljubljana, 2018); Gallery ŠKUC (Ljubljana, 2014; 2013); Galerija Gregor Podnar (Ljubljana, 2013; 2009); and International Centre of Graphic Arts (Ljubljana, 2016; 2014; 2012) among others.
Jen Liu (b. 1976 in Smithtown, NY, USA) lives and works in New York, USA. Liu has held screenings, exhibited and performed within the USA and internationally for solo and group shows including, KIT – Kunst im Tunnel (Düsseldorf, 2018); Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, 2018); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing, 2018); and Bogor Zoology Museum (Bogor, 2017) among others.
Marko Tadić (b. 1979 in Sisak, Croatia) lives and works in Zagreb, Croatia. His works have been exhibited internationally in solo and group shows including, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb, 2018); Croatian Pavilion at 57th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale (2017); Gallery ŠKUC (Ljubljana, 2013); and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Rijeka, 2013) among others.