The Opposite of What We Now Know To Be True
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C YK, 2008, neon lights, 40 x 140 x 2 cm
C YK - Black To The Future, Iris Kadel, Karlsruhe, 2008
Joseph, 2008, Print, plexiglass, 82 x 40 x 4,5 cm
Citizen Kane, (detail), 2008, paper, plexiglass, 82 x 40 x 4,5 cm
Yellow Kids, (detail), 2008, foil, wire, 400 x 200 x 5 cm
C YK - Black To The Future, Iris Kadel, Karlsruhe, 2008
C YK - Black To The Future, Iris Kadel, Karlsruhe, 2008
Magenta Battle, (detail), 2008, c-Print mounted on wood, 7 parts, 182 x 52 x 4,5 cm
C YK - Black To The Future
18 Jan 2008 - 02 Mar 2008
The Gallery Iris Kadel is delighted to announce the first solo exhibition by Riccardo Previdi in Germany.
The construction of ambiguous situations is characteristic of Riccardo Previdi´s works: inconsistent forms of design, architecture and pop- culture are combined to form something new. The result is a particular dualism that illuminates cultural subtext. Often, Riccardo Previdi´s installations and objects can be seen as a stage or display that offers the possibility for individual performances.
The exhibition "C YK - Black To The Future" connects an associative web around the culture- and design-history of print technology, called CMYK. Aspects of conflict, capture and occupation are obvious both in history and design. Magenta is not only a colour, but also an italian city where in 1859 the "Battle of Magenta" took place. The company Telekom have a copyright on the colour magenta for its goods and supply of services of telecommunication. Right after the "Battle of Magenta" the colour magenta was produced artificially for the very first time and named after this previous event. 1890 the colour magenta was used for the print method with four colours: C = cyan, M = magenta, Y= Yellow, K = black. The publisher of New York World, Joseph Pulitzer, was the first one who used it for the print of the comic-strip Yello Kid. The consequence was a bitter fight when the publisher of The New York Journal, William E. Hearst, lured away the designer of Yello Kid.
Riccardo Previdi´s exhibition "C YK - Black To The Future" transfers those different paths of narration to a minimalistic concept of forms that re-organise and re-design the white cube of the gallery. Architectural interventions like the magenta coloured transparent foil on the gallery´s showcase changes the original perception of the gallery as a display for art. Looking through the foil, the magenta coloured surface merges with its surroundings as if the foil did not exist. The inner space of the gallery is divided by an additional yellow foil that changes the view of the wall beyond where "convolutions" of paper are installed. Only the mobility of the viewer allows the "real" consistence of the single elements that at the same time changes the view on the "Gestalt" of the others to be seen. The neon writing "C YK" is visible also from outside the gallery. The coloured and shiny letters C YK become a point of attraction, a cryptic code which simultaneously influences its surroundings.
All the single elements of the exhibition "C YK - Black To The Future"
are autonomous objects, but seen as one whole, as an architectural intervention,
they start to play with the idea of a constructivist stage of perception:
C- M-Y- K.
