The amazing Blain Southern Gallery in Berlin presented a video exhibition by the Scottish artis Douglas Gordon, who actually lives and works in Berlin.
His work explores the convergence between video, film, installation, sculpture and music, playing with the space and controlling different monitors, creating a space with many points of view and ways to approach the video creating ambiguous meanings.
Sharpening Fantasies present different videos which demonstrate the different approaches that the oriental and occidental culture have in regard to life, death, light and darkness or fear and desire.
Gordon travelled to Morocco in 2012 where he filmed different scenes which have repetitive movements and allude to time and memory.
the way Gordon uses light, creating really high contrast between both light and darkness creates an almost hypnotical atmosphere
In the video, from which the name of the exhibition was taken, features an old man's hands making a repetitive movement, which is strong and elegant at the same time, there is a very strong contrast of light, the movements and the sound mix together and at one moment they become unbearable, but they are certainly hypnotic, he also puts two projections,that work as a reflection of one another.
The very big scales of the projections take the viewer in a totally isolated experience and they become overwhelming, specially with the gallery's space which is huge by the way.
This exhibition took place from March 8 till the 18th.
The solo Exhibition By Cristi Pogacean ( born in 1980, lives and works in Romania)
Cristi's Instalations have an important historical weight and have a lot to do with Romanian dictatorship and religion. It points out the question of who is actually making history, according to the artist, it is masses who make it. like in his video "The actors of Subliminal history" where Pongacean sets an image of the celebration of the new dictatorship in Casescu, Romania, for a second the image turns into a picture of the dictator's corpse inmediately after his execution.
It is very interesting how the artist uses all kinds of media to get a clear message out, including embroidery, tapestry, video installations, found objects with a twist.
One of the works that I personally found the most interesting is a woolen manufactured carpet called" The Abduction from the Seraglio, 2006" which reproduces an image from the news, where a group of Romanian journalists where kidnapped in Iraq, this work has been very criticized and it has raised accusations for its high political content. The fact that he uses a carpet emphasizes the irony of this well covered subject.Perfect for a house carpet.
The work titled "The Power of Belief" Consists on a paper plane crashing and almost going through a brick, which is definitely explicit according to its name, and a very direct, empowering and universal image.
Pogacean questions the concept of modernism, specially in "The begginign of the end", a sculpture of a very well polished marble egg, whish makes a reference to Brancusi's egg "The beggining of the world", illustrating the end of modernism.
His metaphores and historical awareness make Pogocean work very eye catching as well as confrontative and direct.
