HCMC – Exhibition “A Physical Obedience Of A Certain Geometry”

Opening: Tue 05 Jul, 6 – 8 pm
Exhibition: 05 – 30/07/2011
Galerie Quynh

From Galerie Quynh:
Galerie Quynh is pleased to present A Physical Obedience Of A Certain Geometry [Nihil Sublime], an exhibition of new work by French artist Thierry Bernard-Gotteland. This is Bernard-Gotteland’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

For more information about exhibition and artist, see below:

Bernard-Gotteland continues to draw on the mythologies of heavy metal music and culture to create this latest body of work. His works are loaded with semiotic markers of defiance, destruction, order, control and power where social roles, cultural models and moral values are examined. Installed in accordance to the Golden Mean, the works possess a symmetry and harmony that belies their violent and aggressive titles. Incorporating text, image and sound, the exhibition is part intimate, domestic space, part aftermath of a live concert and part private fantasy. A faux leather bed dangling from the ceiling, metal chains, paintings of viscous black enamel, stage lights arranged in a pentagram, text from Hollywood scripts fashioned with black duct tape, a tree branch bandaged with tape, the whirring sound of industrial fans whose movement creates discordant noise from a guitar lend the exhibition a sexy, sensual and forbidden atmosphere.

The artist states, “Plato describes humans as prisoners living chained up in Allegory of the Cave. Everything we see – shadows thrown onto the wall in front of us, screenings taking place in the cinema, in the television room, in the bedroom and also in the garage (rehearsal) – become our everyday life. Those spaces become metaphors of our daily life where dreams, nightmares and phantasma are projected to being the building blocks of such hyperreal construction. The layout of the installation is formally related to those spaces where the viewer’s body becomes the ‘personae’ of such territories.”

About the artist: Thierry Bernard-Gotteland was born in 1974 in Chambéry, France. He received his MFA from the School of Fine Art in Grenoble and a Post-Diploma at Le Fresnoy, National Studio of Contemporary Art in Tourcoing where he worked with acclaimed artist Antoni Muntadas. Bernard-Gotteland has exhibited in North America, Europe and Asia. Recent exhibitions include To Ho Chi Minh City with Love: A Social Sculpture – a project by Phong Bui, San Art, Ho Chi Minh City and the sound performance Untitled [DelayedDustScreens] at The Cage, Labo Wonderful, Ho Chi Minh City. The artist is also a lecturer in the design department at RMIT University in Ho Chi Minh City. He lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City.