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Exhibition Catalog
- 2. CONTENTS Roni Horn 1 Kosuke Takahashi 5 Bianca Ng 9 Summer Studio 13 Jenny Holzer 17 Peter Downsbrough 23 Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Design Ali Mahoney Editor Ali Mahoney Photography credits Roni Horn, Kosuke Takahashi, Bianca Ng, Summer Studio, Jenny Holzer, Peter Downsbrough Printed and bound by Ali Mahoney Typefaces: EloquentJFPro and Proxima Nova Paper: Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Paper Matte
- 4. 4 Roni Horn’s work concentrates on the materiality of the objects depicted. She also uses words as the basis for drawings and other works. Horn crafts complex relationships between the viewer and her work by installing a single piece on opposing walls, in adjoining rooms, or throughout a series of buildings. She subverts the notion of “identical experience,” insisting that one’s sense of self is marked by a place in the “here- and-there” and by time in the “now-and-then.” She describes her artworks as “site-dependent,” expanding upon the idea of site-specificity associated with minimalism. “This type of work—where you’re supposedly in this visual realm and all of a sudden there is text— is not easy for a lot of people. I think of text as visual. When you are brought up with the graven image as forbidden—because the graven image is a metaphor for a visualization—then it’s absolutely primary that language would replace that role. I never really distinguished between symbolic visual language versus descriptive visual photograph. My relationship to my work is extremely verbal, extremely language-based. I am probably more language-based than I am visual, and I move through language to arrive at the visual. So, I’ve always questioned whether I am really a visual artist.” 3
- 6. Braille Neue is a universal typeface that combines braille with existing characters. This typeface communicates to both the sighted and blind people in the same space. Currently, we rarely see braille implemented in the public space since it takes additional space and sighted people consider it not important. Braille Neue addresses this issue by making braille easy to use for sighted people. In Latin alphabets, attempts to combine braille with existing characters have been made by various designers all over the world. Through the contribution of increasing the variation of typeface that combine braille with existing characters and thinking about its implementations, Takahashi aims for an inclusive society where using braille becomes commonplace. “By spreading this typeset I believe more people will get acquainted with braille. I also conducted a research to see if large signage with braille was readable for blind people. Through the research, I found out that as long as there is the 6 dotted pattern, it is possible for them to read it regardless of its size. Braille tends to be small and invisible, but with Braille Neue it has the possibility to expand spatially into public signages in new ways.” 8 7
- 8. “Graphic designers are no longer simply being responsive, but instead, they are redefining the potentials for the future of visual communication. I was asked to respond to the question, ‘What is my statement as a graphic designer?’ I designed an interactive, typographic installation out of post-it notes, which emphasized communication, but the ‘interaction’ aspect touches upon the idea of responsibility and relevance to society. People were allowed to interact with the piece by contributing or taking away. I wanted people to question the ephemeral nature of life. If everything is so temporary, including graphic design, what is the point? The quote is significant to my personal life and my professional life. As a designer, I was interested in the idea of temporary marks of design such as flyers, posters, tickets, and calendars. These designs are extremely temporary so do they even matter? Some last one day, a week, a month, a year. What about the history of designers who have created works and were not marked in the history of design? Do they have significance? The things that matter only matter because we as humans put significance to it. We make the connections and we make it matter. It’s all about perspective. I think the reason I love this quote so much is because it can be read positively or negatively, depending on your perspective. In general it is a positive statement. I think it also signifies keeping a balance in your life. Everything matters, but also don’t stress out so much about everything because to some degree it doesn’t matter.” 11
- 10. Typography appears to be a particularly male-dominated area of the design industry. It’s been suggested that type design’s roots in the historically male- dominated world of printing has resulted in today’s gender disparities. Recent graduate students Minna Sakaria and Carolina Dahl of Summer Studio in Stockholm are addressing gendered use of type with their work. Sakaria first became interested in the subject when researching gendered sub-brands—she was looking at H&M, Coca Cola, and Gillette, noticing how a neutral, angular sans-serif is used to signal masculinity, while the feminine binary is inevitably represented by a flowing, soft, and curling font. “Typography is the perfect medium for contradiction because it allows for redundancy: you can say ‘girl’ twice with the same word by using a girly typeface.” For the Queertype project, Summer Studio used the typographic stereotypes but challenged them by switching their application, ie. writing words associated with girls with a masculine typeface and vice versa. The typefaces were used for t-shirts featuring slogans found at high-street clothing stores. T-shirts “for boys” reading things like “trouble is my middle name” were re- appropriated with Avec, the curled font, while slogans “for girls,” like “I wear flowers” and “cats have more fun,” were printed using the neutral Sans. 16
- 13. 22 Jenny Holzer is an American artist best known for her text- based public art projects. Exploring how language is used both as a form of communication and as a means of concealment and control, Holzer has employed a variety of media throughout her career, including large-scale projections, LED displays, T-shirts, and posters. “I used language because I wanted to offer content that people—not necessarily art people—could understand.” Her stark one-liners call attention to social injustice and shed light on dark corners of the human psyche. They are intended to generate debate and make us think critically. A political activist as well as an artist, Holzer’s aim is to disrupt the passive reception of information from damaging sources. As her reputation has grown, so has the ambition and scope of her work, which has traveled to public spaces in much of the world. In her profound skepticism toward power, Holzer joins the ranks of anti-authoritarians in art. Both message and medium are equally important in Holzer’s work. Her iconic LED signs use the same technology that transmits dates, speeds, temperatures and other impersonal information in public places. This allows her to launch a sneak attack on the urban environment, short-circuiting the system when, in place of the impersonal signage we expect to encounter, we find private, personal, or politically sensitive information. 21
- 15. Peter Downsbrough has developed a strongly reduced visual vocabulary, which he uses to investigate the given space in a very personal and precise way. His material consists of letters and lines. He uses adhesive letters, forming conjunctions, prepositions, verbs and/or nouns and applies them to the walls, floors and/or ceilings. Lines, for which he uses cloth tape, emphasize certain architectural elements. Metal pipes, in the space and sometimes on the wall, accentuate the space. Areas defined by lines or painted black sometimes play a role, and, with the lines and the words reveal the architecture of interior or exterior spaces. He has examined language and constructed space since the mid 1960s. He leads a very personal and extremely thorough search which consists in structuring the space and creating discreet yet clearly visible volumes using a refined plastic vocabulary, made from simple geometric figures, lines, words and painted surfaces. His numerous artistic practices - sculptures, photographs, mural works, books, films, publications, sound works, urban space interventions - are based on the concept of position, sequence, interval and frame, and question the viewpoint. All of Peter Downsbrough’s works evoke place, placement and displacement. They result in a relationship, offering the viewer to take up a position: “the pieces are not ‘objects’ but rather elements which engage the subject in a dialogue.” “With the word, one takes part in a dialogue, a discourse on its precise meaning. The word for me is an object. It has both a precise and a vague meaning. It is a universe one is confronted with. But there is no obligatory way of reading.” 26 25