Opening 5 June 17.00 – 20.00
GREG STREAK
Opening 5 June 17.00 – 20.00
Greg Streak (South Africa) is an interdisciplinary practitioner working in sculpture, video, installation and documentary film-making. His cool aesthetic, even minimalist work, is characterized by formalistic concerns and a preoccupation with the materiality of substance and things, but also space, both physical and psychological.
Streak has a sharply critical and eclectic eye. One of the more prolific artists of his generation, he has focused on both his individual pursuits as well as orchestrating large scale projects that he has both conceptualized and curated. Where most tend to specialize in search of a formula, Streak’s work is characterized by an almost Naumanesque boastfulness - he is able to control almost any medium he turns to.
Streak’s new work for his solo show entitled Nothing lasts forever, to be held from June 5th until July 17th 2010 at the Soledad Senlle Gallery in Amsterdam is an extension of the work from his critically acclaimed solo exhibition Accumulative Disintegration in 2008.
The titles of the works are critical in Streak’s case; they give meaning to much of what would otherwise be obsessive abstraction.
“I am interested in the invisible space between a title and the accompanying work and how the work is transformed by the title and the title by the work. At best the works are supposed to float away into abstraction, multiple truths and fantasy and then the title functions as this cruel anchor that nails it to the ground.”
Nothing lasts forever is, as the title suggests, a probe into the impermanence of things. Biopsy (2010), is a 1.2m diameter sphere with a thickness of 100mm and floats approximately 50mm off of the ground. It is constructed from 60 000 wire ties into an intensely woven spiral. A biopsy is the removal of a piece of tissue from a living body for diagnostic study. The title in itself alludes to the fact that something is potentially wrong – just not exactly what.
“I think Nothing lasts forever is really a body of work that alludes to the conflicted times in which we live; a time of blatant hypocrisy, malevolence and subterfuge often masked by sugar coated smoke and mirrors. I sense that we live in a time where there is a lot wrong. The works are intimate reflections, metaphors for this abnormality and what I see as social haemorrhaging.”
This is Streak’s first solo show in Amsterdam since his residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (1997 – 1998).
Greg Streak will be represented by Soledad Senlle gallery at Art Amsterdam 2010.
Greg Streak (SA) Biopsy, 2010
57000 wire ties, mild steel flat bar,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
Biopsy (2010), is a 1.2m diameter sphere with a thickness of 100mm and floats approximately 50mm off of the ground. It is constructed from 57 000 wire ties into an intensely woven spiral. It looks like a cross section through, a core sample of … and the title confirms this. A biopsy is the removal of a piece of tissue from a living body for diagnostic study. The title in itself alludes to the fact that something is potentially wrong – just not exactly what.
Greg Streak (SA) Envelopes for tears, 2010
White insulation tape, foam core, wood, fluorescent tube,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
Envelopes for tears consists of tiny three-dimensional envelopes ingeniously constructed from white household insulation tape. Hundreds of these receptacles are randomly stuck onto a white plastic surface and boxed in behind a white wood and glass frame. There is barely enough space between the insulation tape envelopes and the glass front – inducing a sense of claustrophobia or suffocation. The wood and glass frame also references a museum case – a means of containing an object of value or historical significance. The envelopes themselves also look like small white sailing vessels or remind one of the beacons or markings on a map indicating conquests or victories. The envelopes are themselves empty, and Streak once again alludes to many possibilities of interpretation, but leaves the final meaning to be filled in. - Jose Ferreira
…and to contain all the tears are hundreds of little Envelopes for tears constructed out of insulating tape and herded into the convention of the frame. This work which offers, if not redemption or salvation, at least a place to cry, a place to acknowledge our pain. The envelopes for tears are doubly moving because of their size. On the one hand, they are exactly the right size to hold real tears. On the other hand, they would be carried away in torrents if they invited the tears of the planet, the nation, or even the surrounding suburbs. - Peter Machen
Envelopes for tears is a metaphorical space - tiny vessels to contain sadness or even tears of joy.
Greg Streak (SA) Infection, 2010
MDF, pva paint, floor polish,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
Infection (open) straddles the interstitial space between conflict and resolution. A thick wood panel with the peculiar dimensions of 1974mm x 1220mm is in fact based on the golden section : a divine proportion. The panel itself is made up of thousands of incisions. The overall surface reminds one of elephant hide, scars, a wind-blown grassland or vibrating bacteria under the microscope. The work suggests an alien invasion and perhaps references a time fraught with the anxiety of transgressions.
Greg Streak (SA) Nothing Lasts Forever, 2010
Aluminium and relief tape,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
Nothing lasts forever is a text work - the words projected forward as white relief stamped letters onto black tape. The words NOTHING LASTS are separated by a 900mm black pause from the word FOREVER. As such, they are connected and separated providing contradictory meaning. NOTHING LASTS alludes to the fact that things, people, situations, everything is impermanent; they will all eventually perish. The isolated word FOREVER - suggests the opposite: everlasting, without an end, for eternity. Put together, NOTHING LASTS FOREVER suggests that things have their time, that they do exist with a certain degree of certainty, but will eventually come to an end.
Greg Streak (SA) Nothing Lasts Forever, 2010
Aluminium and relief tape,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
Nothing lasts forever is a text work - the words projected forward as white relief stamped letters onto black tape. The words NOTHING LASTS are separated by a 900mm black pause from the word FOREVER. As such, they are connected and separated providing contradictory meaning. NOTHING LASTS alludes to the fact that things, people, situations, everything is impermanent; they will all eventually perish. The isolated word FOREVER - suggests the opposite: everlasting, without an end, for eternity. Put together, NOTHING LASTS FOREVER suggests that things have their time, that they do exist with a certain degree of certainty, but will eventually come to an end.
Greg Streak (SA) Nothing Lasts Forever, 2010
Aluminium and relief tape,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
Nothing lasts forever is a text work - the words projected forward as white relief stamped letters onto black tape. The words NOTHING LASTS are separated by a 900mm black pause from the word FOREVER. As such, they are connected and separated providing contradictory meaning. NOTHING LASTS alludes to the fact that things, people, situations, everything is impermanent; they will all eventually perish. The isolated word FOREVER - suggests the opposite: everlasting, without an end, for eternity. Put together, NOTHING LASTS FOREVER suggests that things have their time, that they do exist with a certain degree of certainty, but will eventually come to an end.
Greg Streak (SA) Secrets (for those who don't have), 2008
2000 miniature paper envelopes, perspex, powder coated mild steel,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
Secrets (for those who don’t have) consists of a perspex box approximately 200mm x 145mm x 160mm fastened to a white powder coated steel bracket. The perspex box is filled with 2000 miniature envelopes that have been sealed and glued together to form 20 stacks of 100 each. The envelopes have been compressed into the sealed box, their contained messages suffocated below the transparent surface and locked away indefinitely; perhaps 2000 confessions captured and necessarily buried.
Greg Streak (SA) Secrets (for those who don't have), 2008
2000 miniature paper envelopes, perspex, powder coated mild steel,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
Secrets (for those who don’t have) consists of a perspex box approximately 200mm x 145mm x 160mm fastened to a white powder coated steel bracket. The perspex box is filled with 2000 miniature envelopes that have been sealed and glued together to form 20 stacks of 100 each. The envelopes have been compressed into the sealed box, their contained messages suffocated below the transparent surface and locked away indefinitely; perhaps 2000 confessions captured and necessarily buried.
Greg Streak (SA) Underbelly, 2008
Polished stainless steel, 2000 razor blades,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
An underbelly by definition is both a dark, often hidden area and / or a vulnerable area; weak point. A vertical stainless steel arc embedded with 2000 razor blades over its "belly" is presented as a reference to the torso; it becomes a stylized protruding stomach or belly. Like much of the work that forms part of the solo exhibition "Nothing lasts forever" - Underbelly references the body in order to speak of that which is situated in the outside world. Underbelly, with its razor armour speaks simultaneously to vulnerability and protection as well as the dichotomy between interior and exterior worlds.
Greg Streak (SA) Underbelly, 2008
Polished stainless steel, 2000 razor blades,
Sloterkade 171, Amsterdam
An underbelly by definition is both a dark, often hidden area and / or a vulnerable area; weak point. A vertical stainless steel arc embedded with 2000 razor blades over its "belly" is presented as a reference to the torso; it becomes a stylized protruding stomach or belly. Like much of the work that forms part of the solo exhibition "Nothing lasts forever" - Underbelly references the body in order to speak of that which is situated in the outside world. Underbelly, with its razor armour speaks simultaneously to vulnerability and protection as well as the dichotomy between interior and exterior worlds.