Many Clouds, Born To Sea
25.05.21 - 24.06.21
All this is manufactured. The red carpet. The horseshoe. The promotional film. The tranquilized horse. There is a curious smell in the gallery; this too is manufactured. It is mixed from the scent of a flower that mimics the carcass of a horse to draw flies.
On the wall are six horse paintings. Metal sheets, made in a factory, powder coated with the ashes of a thoroughbred racehorse. They extend the legacy of Degas and Stubbs (and countless others) who have made paintings of racehorses. But they are material rather than figurative: these are made of the horse.
Thoroughbreds are manufactured, he says. In the late 17th century, three stallions were imported to England, then mass-produced for a global market. Manufactured for the economy of gambling, sustained by the legacy of painting, the shuddering embodiment of empire.
To one side of the gallery there is a screening room. It shows a promotional film they made for a horse hospital, in exchange for the opportunity to make their own artwork there. The film follows the PR department's storyboard, but veers across an abstract choreography of humans, animals, bodies, machines and limbs. Now we are back in the gallery, looking at the white platform. We built it for their new performance, where a group of dancers will re-enact an audition for casino showgirls.
It's time to wrap up our conversation. In half an hour, their daughter will finish nursery. There is a funding application due at midnight. Who knows whether all this will pay off. Gambling is our contemporary condition, they tell me. Which is what gamblers would say.
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INSTALLATION VIEWS
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LIST OF WORKS
Blue Roan (Metacarpus)
Horse ash powder coat on steel panel
200 x 150 cm
Blue Roan (iiii KKLM)
Horse ash powder coat on steel panel
300 x 230 cm
Blue Roan (External Oblique)
Horse ash powder coat on steel panel
300 x 230 cm
Blue Roan (Linea Alba)
Horse ash powder coat on steel panel
300 x 230 cm
Blue Roan (Transversalis)
Horse ash powder coat on steel panel
200 x 150 cm
The Exchange
Promotional video, HD, 8 mins
The Restraint
Scent
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Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen (b.1981, based in London) work across objects, installation and film to explore processes of production as cultural, personal and political practices.
Recent solo shows include Palms Palms Palms at Z33 Kunstencentrum, Hasselt; Luna Eclipse, Oasis Dream at Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston; Trapped in the Dream of the Other at Mu.Zee, Ostend; White Horse / Twin Horse at de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam; Assemble Standard Minimal at Schering Stiftung, Berlin. Selected group exhibitions include Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; The 13th Shanghai Biennale; The Renaissance Society, Chicago; Para Site, Hong Kong; Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna; Fotomuseum Winterthur; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin and Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo.
Recent film screenings took place at the Serpentine Cinema, London; The Toronto Biennale 2019; Philadelphia Museum of Art and Congo International Film Festival, Goma. Critical writing and reviews include Artforum, Texte Zur Kunst, Frieze, Spike, Artreview and Metropolis M, their upcoming monograph 'Not What I Meant but Anyway' is published by Columbia Books on Architecture and the City (2021). Their work is part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and M+ Museum, Hong Kong.
www.cohenvanbalen.com