exhibitions

DIANN BAUER

On a scale of 1:1

17. 5. 2007 - 23. 6. 2007

vamiali’s gallery is pleased to present the second solo show in Athens of artist Diann Bauer titled “On a scale of 1:1”. Diann Bauer was born in New York, currently lives and works in London.

Diann Bauer presents an installation of various size drawings and studies with ink, acrylic and pencil on tracing paper and drafting film. She borrows the exhibition’s title “On a scale of 1:1” from Jorge Luis Borges short story titled “on Exactitude in Science”, about a kingdom where cartographers made its map on a scale of one to one. Using this short story as a point of departure, Bauer creates an unclassified and complicated world where architectural fragments merged with classical painting elements, anatomy, comics, urban imagery in a violent narration somewhere between abstraction and representation.

These drawings with separate titles like “The Skys Over Urban Life” or “Off with his Head Spilling out into the modern World” and “2 Male Bodies Explode on Impact” explore violence as a human geography and define the structure of a non existent world without hierarchies. Fragmented human parts, historical references and architectural sketches adapt seductive violent images from various sources and cultures to create a cinematic narration but without beginning and end. Bauer’s work is anthropocentric. The good, the bad and the super hero are embodied into a dissimilar imagery giving an impression of confusion among material, space, time, object and subject. Baroque painting, Japanese warriors, architectural plans, semeiology and comics’ graphic conventions create a controlled explosion where conflict and pain are becoming spectacular forms, romantic and embellished. Bauer’s work is characterized by a rare attention to detail and skill, using a distinguish personal vocabulary.

Diann Bauer has recently participated among others in the exhibitions: Bludgeonerator, The Showroom, London (solo), The Body. The Ruin, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne (solo), Go Between, Kunstverein, Bregenz, Meijius, vamiali’s, Athens (solo), Panic Room-works from Dakis Joannou Collection, Deste Foundation, Athens, A Tale of Two Cities, Busan Biennale, Korea, Metropolis Rise: New Art from London Dashanzi International Art Festival, 798 Space, Beijing, Expanded Painting, Prague Biennale 2, Prague, Kingdom, The Market Gallery, Glasgow, The Drawing Project, vamiali's, Athens, New British Painting, John Hansard Gallery, Southampton.