AZIZ + CUCHER
series & projects
mixed media
- "Synaptic Bliss_Etude" 2006
- "Chimeras" 1998
- "Passage" 2001
- "Plasmorphica" 1996
19. 09. - 26.10.08
Curated by Malin Barth
In the exhibition with the artist duo Aziz + Cucher, we are confronted with the strength and weakness of the body in a technological world that both threatens and protects our existence. The artists question the impact of technology in relation to the culture that creates and implements it. In the photo series Chimeras, a number of computer-like plugs in various compositions are encased in skin as living objects and substitutes for us humans.
In the video work Passage one can sense a breathable and vibrant body, but in the form of an interior pictures of a clinical and naked room where all surfaces - walls, ceilings, floors and moldings - are wallpapered with human skin. Still life in Plasmorphica are objects covered in surgical skin that symbolize sterile, hybrid techno-bodies. With ever increasing complexity, Aziz + Cucher has delved into the skin's communicative potential and visual capabilities beyond the usual compositional nature of the skin.
Aziz + Cucher have been collaborating on and exhibiting digital photography projects and sculpture since 1991. They live and work in Brooklyn, New York. Anthony Aziz began with an interest in documentaries and photograpy, while Sammy Cucher’s work originated in theatre and video.
Their collaborative interest is in “creating visual metaphors for the increasing role that new technologies play in our lives and how they affect us politically, socially, and psychologically.” They explore the possi-bilities for human beings in a time when we can transform ourselves and nature from “known forms into unknown forms” as a result of the potential inherent in the coming together of computer science, biotech-nology, genetics and nanotechnology.
In a recent interview they speak of their focus on the fabricated/fictional quality as well as the documen-tary/real.
“If you look at an object and you look at a photograph of the object, you’re looking at a translation, and it is this area of translation or transformation that we are after. ...It is the fact that these images are an illu-sion that is reinforced by the conventions of photographic realism that interests us. Photography has this veracity to it; the sense of documentation of a reality yet the reality we present is utterly an illusion.“
Some ideas central to their work are:
• New technologies allow human beings to create biological forms, which then introduces aesthetics as a component in biology and evolution. This aesthetization of biology then links it to art and raises ques-tions about the implications for evolution.
• The relationship between nature and metaphor and the ways in which “Reality (Nature) and Metaphor generate each other, then supersede each other to be created anew.” They are thinking about the ways in which the manipulation of nature through genetics and at the atomic level eliminates the need for repre-sentation and makes metaphor unnecessary. They propose this as a spiral of metamorphosis from known to unknown.
Definition: Chimera
* An organism, organ, or part consisting of two or more tissues of different genetic composition, produced as a result of organ transplant, grafting, or genetic engineering
* A monster represented as vomiting flames, and as having the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a dragon
* A modular, X Window System-based World-Wide Web browser for Unix
Anthony Aziz b. 1961 in Lunenburg, Massachusetts (USA); studies at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and the San Francisco Art Institute (1990 Master of Fine Arts); known for his photographic work of digital recompositing in collaboration with Sammy Cucher.
Sammy Cucher b. 1958 in Caracas (Venezuela); studies theater and film at the University of Tel Aviv (Israel), at New York University and at the San Francisco Art Institute (1992 Master of Fine Arts). Artistic collaboration with Anthony Aziz.
Aziz + Cucher have exhibited at the 46th Venice Biennale, MASS MoCA, the New Museum (New York), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the List Visual Art Center at MIT (Cambridge, MA), the National Gallery of Berlin, and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), among others.
Utstillingsåpning av Hege R. Eriksen,Forskningsdirektør Unifob helse, Universitetet i Bergen.
Presse:
BA >>>
BT >>>
Forelesning:
23. oktober, 18.00
I forbindelse med utstillingen AZIZ + CUCHER inviterer 3,14 til forelesningskveld
”Dagens helseplager, hva er normalt og spiller mestring noen rolle?”
med Silje Mæland, fysioterapeut, forsker og Magnus Odeen, psykolog, forsker ved Unifob helse, Stress, helse og rehabilitering, i samarbeid med Hege R. Eriksen, professor, forskningsdirektør dr. philos, leder av Unifob helse.
Unifob helse er del av randsonen til Universitetet i Bergen og driver eksternt finansiert forsknings- og undervisnings virksomhet. Avdelingen har prosjekter og forskningsgrupper innenfor et bredt område innen psykologi, odontologi og medisin.
Unifob helse har spesiell kompetanse innen:
• Helse • Arbeidsliv • Livsstil • Oppvekst • Samfunn
Avdelingen driver i dag forskning innen barne og ungdomspsykiatri, barnevern, skole, utvikling, mobbing, arbeidslivs-forskning, arbeidsmedisin, stress, musikkterapi, allmennmedisinske problemstillinger, legevaktmedisin, mestring og forskning innen forebygging og behandling av ryggplager, og forskning og utredning av mulige bivirkninger av odontologiske biomaterialer.
KUNSTDYKK
15. oktober, kl 16.00
Trond-Viggo Torgersen leder en diskusjon om kropp og kultur for ungdom mellom 16 og 19 år.