David Dale Gallery & Studios are pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Kilian Rüthemann & Kate V Robertson for Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2012. The exhibition will be Rüthemann’s first UK exhibition, and the first time he and Robertson have exhibited together.
Working in direct response to the architecture of the gallery space, Rüthemann and Robertson create site-specific installations and interventions that disrupt the viewer’s perception of the space and its properties. Exposing a fissure in material and application, each artist, perusing separate lines of enquiry, brings attention to the inherent mute limitations – though infinite malleability – of solid objects and structures.
Swiss artist Kilian Rüthemann’s practice involves working in direct response to the architectectonic properties of the space and creating site-specific sculptural interventions. Often utilising relatively basic materials such as salt, sugar, bitumen or cement – and in this case steel, Rüthemann creates a form of contemplative equilibrium between the space and the intervention, allowing the structures to illustrate their function. For this exhibition, Rüthemann has created a large-scale installation: Linger!, which parodies the structural framework of the gallery space. Rüthemann’s new work mimics and emphasises the division of the gallery space by the architecturally integral steel girders. Reminiscent of Richard Serra’s One ton prop or Fulcrum, the work denies these references by eschewing its own materiality, instead acting more like paper buckling under its own weight and the implied weight of its support. Linger! draws the viewer in through an altered perception of space and follows a narrative of dissolution that underpins the impermanence of construction.
Glasgow based artist Robertson presents several new works utilising a variety of materials and their inadequacies’, vicariously manipulating each material to exist in another form. This form is not always immediately obvious, as Robertson prefers to agitate or surprise the viewer, exciting the need for comprehension within her work. Appropriating both permanent and temporal objects, Robertson’s work experiments with the nature of functionality and each object’s ability to change state. From pieces such as Untitled (Compromise), in which a brick’s negative shape is moulded into the gallery’s original glass window pane, toUntitled (Refresh) a projection on a screen of ice, which slowly melts away over the course of each day, leaving the projected image without a surface – Robertson’s work in this exhibition questions the permeability of solid objects and exposes their transient nature.
Drawing on historical and temporal references, Rüthemann and Robertson work in contrastive approaches united by ideas of dissolution, instability and failure to infract spatial boundaries. Both the artist’s work can only exist for a set duration before it is dismantled and subsumed back into the architecture it previously usurped.
This exhibition is the first exhibition in David Dale Gallery’s new permanent space.
Kilian Rüthemann born in Bütschwil, Switzerland, 1979; based in Basel and Berlin.
Rüthemann studied stone sculpting at Zuzwil, St. Gallen (1997–2001) and Fine Arts and Media Art at the Academy of Art and Design, Basel (2002–2005).
Selected solo exhibitions include: Anchor of Hope, Meyer Riegger, Berlin, 2011; Target as Frontside, RaebervonStenglin, Zürich, 2011; Walking Distance, Künstlerhaus Bremen, Bremen, 2010; Attacca, Manor Art Award Basel, Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Basel, 2010; Double Rich, Instituto Svizzero di Roma, 2009; and Sooner Rather than Later, Kunsthaus Glarus, Glarus, 2009.
Selected group exhibitions include: Valentine, with Manuel Scheiwiller, Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, Hamburg, 2011; Displaced Fractures, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, 2010; 5th Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin, 2008; and Poor Thing, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 2007.
Rüthemann was the recipient of the Manor Art Award, Basel in 2010, the Swiss Art Award and the Swiss Exhibition Award in 2009. Rüthemann is represented by RaebervonStenglin, Zürich.
Kate V Robertson born in Scotland, 1980; lives and works in Glasgow. Robertson graduated in 2009 from The Glasgow School of Art with a Masters of Fine Art.
Selected solo exhibitions include: Pieces, Galerie Feinkost, Berlin, 2010; and To Be Continued…, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Edinburgh, 2010.
Selected group exhibitions include: Industrial Aesthetics: Environmental Influences on recent art from Scotland, Hunter College, Times Square Gallery, New York, 2011; During Office Hours, Galerie Feinkost, hosted by VGF Verband Geschlossene Fonds e.V Berlin, 2010; Running Time, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 2009; and Rubble Stir, The Glue Factory, Glasgow, 2010.
Robertson has been involved in several public art projects including Atypical Root Public Art Trail, Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, 2010; and Notices, featured in Edinburgh Art Festival, 2009.
In 2009 Kate V Robertson was shortlisted for the ‘Artists Taking the Lead’ London 2012 Cultural Olympiad commission.
