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) 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) 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) 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) 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.