Michael John Whelan – The Birth and Death of Stars
Boetzelaer|Nispen is proud to present Michael John Whelan’s first U.K. solo exhibition, The Birth and Death of Stars. Whelan will present entirely new work including a two-channel 16mm film installation, video, drawing and photography.
“Michael John Whelan uses the media video, film, and photography to disassociate ordinary scenes from common perspectives and familiar experiences. Yet, the possibility to refer back to the banality of daily life is always maintained. Notions of time and space develop from visually stimulating images, characterised by imposed slowness or the negation of spatial relationships. Objects, figures or formal shifts disrupt these static settings to reintroduce the ordinary and familiar. Whelan provides platforms for experiences for the viewer, within which patterns of space and time merge and dissolve and subsequently establish new arrangements and relationships. The notion of solitude and detachment becomes transformed into a gesture of slowness and meditation – into a visionary concept opposing the lived reality: a call for contemplation and deceleration.” (Dr.Christoph Kivelitz)
In the two-channel 16mm film installation Reprieve, Whelan presents an image of a stained glass church window split between two projections. The church is a familiar architectural structure. Antiquated but still current it holds a strong function within western society. It represents a gateway to a different time, a different logic – not just within architecture, but even in the way we see and construct ourselves as a society. The stained glass window in particular serves as a story telling device, a way to communicate a pictorial message to the community. Filmed from the outside with the interior church lights off, this pictorial image is rendered ineffective, giving an impression of black glass and minimal imagery. The calm of this monolithic structure is broken only by the chaotic flurries of snowflakes between the camera and the window. The architectural element is dissected visually by the installation, creating a space to interpret and understand this construction.
Quiet but absorbing are the two new Polaroid series Stars and Star. Recording long exposures on the recently discontinued Fuji FP-100B film, Stars captures star trails in black and white. Each image of this series is a unique recording, as there is no reproducible negative; this questions the relationship with our spectacular and often photographed cosmos. Alternatively, for the series Star, Whelan uses the smallest aperture and fastest shutter speed of a medium format camera. Pointed directly at the sun, he exposes a minuscule exposure time, resulting in a blinding image of our sun. By using the Hasselblad square format, the Polaroid is only partly exposed and therefore its unexposed blackness becomes an important element of the work.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Michael John Whelan lives and works in Berlin and
Dublin. He received a BA in Fine Art from IADT-DL, Dublin in 2002 and an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2004. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Under the receding wave’ at Kunstverein Bochum, ‘Dirt. Geometry.’ at Reimann le Begue Galerie, Duesseldorf. Recent group presentations include ‘Cinematic’ at Kunstverein Bremerhaven, ‘Where Gravity Makes You Float’ at Grimmuseum, Berlin, Taste my photons at Noorderlicht Gallery, Groningen, ‘Artissima 18′ with Grey Noise Gallery. Upcoming exhibitions in 2012 include Grey Noise Gallery, Dubai (Solo) and KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen. In 2005 he was the recipient of the Clifford Chance/University of the Arts Sculpture Award. His work is in a number of public and private collections.
“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars.” (Carl Sagan)
B&N Gallery has gone through a slight rebranding and will be known as ‘Boetzelaer|Nispen’ from now on. Boetzelaer|Nispen is a young gallery showing the work of promising young artists from a large, somewhat hidden space in Shoreditch, London.
This show was made possible by a grant from Culture Ireland.