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| Vistas, Voodoo and an ill-bred collection of Lawn Ornaments New works by Gabi Trinkaus |
| From the painted pastoral window eulogizing opulent life styles and the commissioned portrait celebrating one’s possessions with family members included; to the digitized images from around the block to exotic global locales visited not for the experience in getting there but for their potential high “like” quotient when shared on the Internet for other’ s to experience, we’ve become the Modern Landscape. Images are the new accessories for our desire to mutate into a cybernetic framework. These images are obtained more from the media than one’s own life experiences where the options are seemingly infinite and the process is facilitated by Social Internet Platforms for us to travel the path of strangers, friends and our alternates. |
FOUND, 220 x 290cm, collage, magazine paper/canvas, 2011-12
Found detail
Live, survive, protect, 140x200 cm, collage, 2012
Opening shot
Opening shot 04_Express & easy, 140 x 190cm, collage, 2012
Truth takes a holiday, 160 x 220 cm, collage, 2012
| Now imagine the frenetic process of jumping from page to page in cyber space only to flood our peripheral with a collidescopic arrangement of thousands of snippets from fragmentary glimpses of what we just clicked on and scrolled over with the undisciplined and Un- discretionary selection process of an elementary school bully at a grab bag armed with an assassin’s unflinching resolve to stay on point and an uncanny awareness of style and all it’s trappings for a short shelf life along with the deftness of a jeweler cutting diamonds while riding on the back of a Vespa only to arrive at a contour not expected by the Market but with a disfigured profile that at first glance is disorienting while commandeering your attention to detail and its disconnected content; you will then grasp what its like to confront one of the immense vistas in the Landscapes by Gabi Trinkaus. Ms Trinkaus exploits the archetype of suburban tranquility and the assumption that one’s pets and lawn ornaments are an effective charm of serenity that double down to serve as gargoyles stationed in strategic outposts to ward off the dissension of the perfection of prefab. What if one discovers the main thread that holds this facade of “want not” peacefulness, that has been heralded as the new benchmark of contentment, is the only conduit that holds it all in place and is not reinforced without worry, disease, violence and threat of repossession, but in fact enforced by stress, pain, inequality, fear and death yet is compulsory for the attainment of nirvana with a water meter? One might just feel compelled to give it a good yank and let it all unravel onto the floor to create a landfill of resource material in order to re-fashion the entire mecca of shopping now literally within our grip, into uncompromised panoramas of splintered realities whose pieces of the pre arranged puzzle lay in flux waiting for the magnet to pull it all into a wave of ordered surrender. |
| But the hand that waves the wand across this terrain of pictorial dissonance never comes. The wand is now the knife and the needle wielded by an insatiable impulse for thievery from our signifiers of comfort and value. By coercing our habits of idolatry of status and expectation the work compels the viewer to readdress how we confront the visual antecedents of contemporary culture as dis-content. The show, “Modern Landscapes and…” 2012 now on view at Andersson/Sandström Galeri in Stockholm till December 17th, displays all the shifts and tweaks that are evident in an artist wanting more and challenging her supporters to do the same. www.gsa.se All the formal virtuosity of the artist’s handling of her materials is reinstated. Evident now is an acute awareness of the technical nuances that are obligatory in the layering of many diverse mediums in one genre and the artist’s need to stay fresh. This expansion is the result of Ms Trinkaus’s insolence to her own prowess of making striking and methodologically flawless 2meter square portraits comprised from literally thousands of magazine clippings of fashion, porn and other trends dominating the major art fairs and lining the walls of international collectors for the last 8 years. This cheekiness has allocated a more aggressive handling of her subjects with the implantation of alternative materials and techniques giving way to an inlayed freedom of expression while sharpening the focal lens on her target. With the implementation of industrial printed fabrics of colloquial patterns, the exposed under layer of contour drawing, bright audacious swabs of acrylic paint that practically parody the newly added print transfer techniques along with a new roster of players (sculpture) in her epic operatic, the artist has been diligent to shift into the latitudes of her paradigm. What are referred to by Ms Trinkaus as “Poolscapes” are large and engulfing mixed media collage work of topographic views of suburban neighborhoods where upper middle class houses are littered with pools, asphalt and sidewalks that serpentine through well-manicured lawns. In order to get it all in an attempt to focus, an allowance of 30 feet is recommended by the artist. But at this vantage point the retina only registers the clarity of the cacophony that is really behind this assemblance of prefabricated domesticity. With the work entitled “FOUND” this suggestion is a bit disconcerting because what becomes clear is the in ability of designating right off what is top and bottom due to the over all ferocious insistence to deconstruct the picture plane |
| The carnage continues to the offspring of the dwellers in an adjoining room where “pin portraits” of baby doll heads are collaged from magazine clippings of skin of other “things” and pinned into place and set in a row that come off as a forensics display of victims of domestic violence. Not even the pets of this highly desired zip code are saved from the artist’s ire. In a posse formation pensive yet patient, dogs inflated by insulation form stare at the “pin portraits” clad in their skin of designer label leather swatches with one sporting an obscured Prada moniker for an anus. Most of the leather was purchased off EBay from sellers wishing the artist years of continuous adornment and wear. They are in the end happy their precious garments found someone who will appreciate and take good care of their favorite motorcycle jacket and handbag. These sellers could very well be the residents of the neighborhoods shattered in the “Poolscapes”. In New York City “An Underdog’s Charm” is the latest beast currently let loose from Trinkaus Studios in Vienna and is being shown at the Claire Oliver Gallery in Chelsea in a show entitled “Beyond Bling” running till the 19th of December. Here the backbite of Gabi Trinkaus’ aim is undeniable with its classic practice of pouring silver into a mold in the shape of a disfigured dog’s head covered with a leather skin stitched in the same vein as the full bodied four-legged companions in Stockholm with the size of a thumbnail, 1in. x 1in x 1in. www.claireoliver.com By extending from what has become familiar and desired towards an even more critical base, a broader allegorical trajectory has ensued and demonstrates the panache compulsory for anyone producing new work with relevance in an art game world that celebrates Ai Wiewei’s, (another favorite artist), right for free expression by dancing “gangnam“ style in the attempt to stay current. But then we are all connected for better or worse in this Modern Landscape. Alexander Viscio +43 699 1159 6031 |
Distrust the Idyllic, 45 x 30 x 30cm, Stitched leather over plaster, 2012
Pin Portraits
Shock confess…, 52 x 47 cm, collage, magazine paper, pins/foam board, framed (museum glass), 2012
CC, object, PU foam, leather, string, fur, 63 x 68 x 40cm, 2012
CC another view
Luca, object, PU foam, leather, string, 63 x68x40cm, 2012
PRAD, object, PU foam, leather, fur, 63 x 58 x 40cm, 2012
An Underdog’s Charm, Silver and hand stitched leather, 1in x 1in x 1in, 2012