Re-Discovery 1:
Laura Buckley and Sture Johannesson
Curated by Francesca Gavin
Opening: Friday, 21 March 2014, 7 p.m.
Duration: 22 March – 19 April 2014
Location:Autocenter, Leipziger Str. 56, 10117 Berlin
“Re-Discoveries”, conceived and designed by five
international guest curators, is a series of exhibitions and lectures held in
Autocenter from 2014 until 2015 in which the works of artists of an older
generation enter into dialogue with younger artists. The earlier positions
focused on – David Hammons, Ivan Kožarić, Sture Johannesson, Peter Rose and
Marianne Wex – are those of artists who are, in Germany, unknown, little known,
or known only as uncharted territory in contemporary art history. They are artists
whose works have fallen into neglect on account of the economic, social or
political mechanisms of the art world or have gone undetected, slipping under
the mainstream radar. The philosophy of “Re-Discoveries” is not restricted to
the mere exhibiting of these positions in the manner of a well-deserved
re-encounter. The objective is to create a chamber of resonance in which older
works come up against contemporary creations, corresponding with them or
producing tensions through which new ways of seeing or new contexts can emerge.
Our concern is to reclaim works of art for present attention and to turn the
spotlight onto the conditions under which they were produced and onto the
discourses involved in their creation.
The first edition of the exhibition series
“Re-Discovery I / Sture Johannesson & Laura Buckley” is curated by
Francesca Gavin. The focus is the intersection between visual experience,
psychedelica and technology through the work of two artists from two different
generations. The aim is to see how differently artists can explore ideas around
perception, visual experience, and the influence of technology on culture.
Sture Johannesson (born 1935 in Sweden) is one of the
most interesting and controversial artists in Sweden’s history. The poster
artworks he sold through the space he founded in Malmo in the 1960s, Galleri
Cannabis, reflected the palette, fluidity and counter culture politics of
international psychedelic movement. His work, including the notorious poster
‘Hash Girl’, became representative of the youth upheaval in Sweden. Johannesson
was one of the first artists to experiment with computers in the creation of
artworks in the 1970s, co-creating on the FIELDS Program. In the early 1980s he
founded The Digital Theatre, making pixel portraits using one of Europe’s first
apple computers.
Laura Buckley (born 1977 in Ireland) creates light and
video installations using sculptural objects, reflection and refraction. Her
inventive works combine mirror, wood and metal structure, projected imagery and
sound elements. Past musical collaborators have included Andrew Weatherall,
Andy Spence (NYPC) and Dave MacLean (Django Django). Her site responsive works
are often accompanied by images from her series of two-dimensional digital
print pieces, made through her experiments with scanners.
Francesca Gavin is a writer and curator based in
London. Her past exhibitions have included The Dark Cube at the Palais de
Tokyo, The New Psychedelia at Mu, Eindhoven and E-Vapor-8 at 319 Scholes, New
York, which is being reconfigured at Site Sheffield in June 2014.
