25 Feb 2012

Jannis Kounellis at Hillsboro Fine Art, Dublin

This is the first solo exhibition of the work of Jannis Kounellis in Dublin. Drawings and works on paper as well as trademark sculptural 'shoe' works are included. Mostly the works on paper date from 2010 and are made using tar and pastel, with some earlier editioned works also forming part of the exhibition.

Describing himself as a Greek person but an Italian artist, Kounellis was born in Piraeus, Greece, in 1936, and has lived and worked in Rome since 1956. He was a seminal member of the internationally influential Arte Povera group and his first exhibition was held in 1960 at the Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome, with his calligraphic-like paintings incorporating words, letters, symbols, numerals and directional arrows boldly painted in black enamel on thin cotton or canvas. The artist would sometimes sing these works as if reading from their score or othertimes even wearing them; this need for directness, with no separation between art and life, guides his work to this day.

Combining apparently contradictory elements, Kounellis removes any form of hierarchy in his use of diverse materials, each playing equivalent roles in his dramatic use of space. These combined elements, carrying the weight of their history, strongly connect to his own personal memories; hope and isolation and loss of communication, theatrically played out in objects and images. The sacks, desks, bottles, coal, steel beams etc that he utilizes remind us of all that went before - simple things, universal, ancient and yet unarguably extant. Though contemporary in form, the work's spirit is imbued with a past of decline and lost hopes that echoes across space and time, emphasisizing the fragmentary relationship history has with the present; but as the artist has often said it's not possible to 'shape a picture without an idea of history'. With organic (sometimes living) elements alongside industrial materials in a poetic co-existence, that Kounellis's work at times seems physically and conceptually fragmented somehow satisfies as a portrayal of the culture from which it comes. Personal accoutrements such as overcoats, shoes, beds and their associations with travel, rest and of home or sense of place suggest the world of the wandering refugee. Kounellis has always made drawings, paintings, prints on paper, but rarely do we get an opportunity to see them. Some serve as ideas and studies, notes and plans, others become elements of sculptural presentations and some form complete self-contained paintings on paper. Often informal and amorphous, they further reveal Kounellis's ongoing exploration of the darker side of culture and society; inferentially, his vocabulary of visual triggers acting to remind us of the role memory must play. Kounellis's life and art journey is for all of us, the artworks like 'still life' snapshots produced along the way encourage those whose encounter them to enter into a dialogue, joining artist and viewer in a shared communication of values, a making sense of the fragments.

This exhibition is accompanied by a hardback publication with essays by Bruno Corá and John Daly. (Jannis Kounellis: Disegni e manufatti, 2012 casebound, 48pp ISBN 978-0-9564950-7-5)