The Opposite of What We Now Know To Be True
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Zweihundert Jahre, 2008, Metal, plexiglass, light, 60 x 120 x 60 cm
The Opposite of What We Now Know To Be True, Sommer & Kohl, Berlin, 2008
Before/After (Philharmonie), 2008, Paper, plexiglass, 92 x 70 x 4,5 cm
The Opposite of What We Now Know To Be True, Sommer & Kohl, Berlin, 2008
Naso (invisible), 2008, Transparent foil, 70 x 91 x 15 cm
The Opposite of What We Now Know To Be True, Sommer & Kohl, Berlin, 2008
The Opposite of What We Now Know To Be True, Sommer & Kohl, Berlin, 2008
The World Is Flat (Oriente), 2008, Cardboard, silver and gold foil, screws, 322 x 207 x 21 cm
The Opposite Of What We Now Know To Be True, 2008, Transparent colour foil, acrylic spray, 6 sheets, A3 each, 1 spray can
Da cosa nasce cosa, 2008, C-print with cut outs, framed: 50 x 35 cm
The Opposite of What We Now Know To Be True
15 March – 26 April 2008
Dr. Melik: "... wheat germ, organic honey, and... Tiger's Milk."
Dr. Aragon: "Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties."
Dr. Melik: "You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?"
Dr. Aragon: "Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true."
Dr. Melik: "Incredible!"
(Sleeper, 1973, Woody Allen)
In his book "Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture
Is Actually Making Us Smarter" (2005), the American neuroscientist Steven
Berlin Johnson develops his so-called "Sleeper-curve". This theory
is based on the scene in Woody Allen's film "Sleeper" described
above in which two scientists in the year 2173 are astonished that steak and
cream pies were not yet considered healthy food two hundred years previously.
With the "sleeper-curve", Johnson explains that popular culture
(especially TV and video games) contributes more to the education of society
than generally assumed – and that what we consider bad now might in
reality be quite good for us.
In his first exhibition at Sommer & Kohl, Italian artist Riccardo Previdi
(*1974) fits together different world views. In the process he constantly
changes perspective – looks back, looks forward or looks back to the
future. Depending on one's point of view, all of a sudden the opposite of
what we consider true can appear. In the work "The World Is Flat",
Previdi refers to Thomas L. Friedman's book of the same title, who uses the
title as a metaphor for a new view of the world. In his analysis of the process
of globalisation, he describes the world as a flat, non-hierarchical field
for trade and competition in which all participants have the same opportunities
and historical, regional and geographical differences play no part. In Previdi's
world map, R. Buckminster Fuller's "Unfolded Dymaxion Map" and the
basic elements of Bruno Munari's multiple "Aconà Biconbì"
overlay each other. In another work, image sequences of before/after views
of Berlin are woven together in such a way that they – always fuzzy
and never to be perceived in their entirety – offer merely partial snapshots
of the city. A reworking of a Munari book cover also just shows the author's
initials and a strange tool on a red background. Viewers have to interpret
the book's content and intention from fragments, just like the historians
of the future in Woody Allen's film have to visualise life in the '70s by
means of found artefacts. Previdi creates a kind of map of the future, an
interplay of clues which seldomly unite into a clear view – a crucial
factor is "Riccardo Previdi's tendency to work with a variety of dualisms
– which, while otherwise apparently contradictory, are then linked by
him to form a new, tension-laden whole." (Raimar Stange: Doublebind,
2007) Two reflective "nose-shaped" objects do not only stand for
empty promises or lies, but could also refer to the only part of the dictator's
body that is artificially kept alive and that Miles Monroe tries to steal
and assassinate in "Sleeper": "Don't you see? Political solutions
never work! That's what I've been trying to tell you! In six months, we'll
be stealing Erno's nose!"
Works by Previdi are on view until 16 March in the group exhibition "Tornado"
at General Public, Berlin; until 30 March in "Wenn ein Reisender in einer
Winternacht. Variations on Max Bill" at MARTA, Herford; from 16 –
20 April at Open Space, Messe Köln and from 19 July – 2 November
at this year's Manifesta in Rovereto, Trento and Bolzano.
For further information and/or images please contact Sommer & Kohl.
