Martin van Zomeren is pleased to present ‘Falten, Searching for White, Rise above Reason’.
The exhibition brings together three 16 mm films by Alexandra Leykauf, Katja Mater and Navid Nuur.

Alexandra Leykauf’s 16 mm film ‘Falten’ (2009)
continues the artist’s search for imagery of the spatial rupture; the photographic detail which ‘pierces’ the viewer. ‘Falten’ features a photograph of an Origami sculpture. Each film still describes a detail of the action of the unfolding of the sculpture. The film starts and ends with the constructed paper object. In that way, ‘Falten’ presents us with a suggestion for an infinite space. The film is a two fold translation: photography into sculpture and sculpture into film.

Navid Nuur’s film presents us with a garbage bag and a stripe of garbage bag-closers organized on a projection table. The projector shows how the crumpled-up plastic bag slowly begins to unfolds itself, and then removed. This action repeats itself; the garbage bag stretches itself or blowes itself up to unforeseeable sculptural forms. The film, entitled ‘RISE ABOVE REASON’, (2007) shows in the most random manners the way an action turns into a logical sequence of itself.

Our modern understanding of light and color begins with Isaac Newton (1642-1726) and a series of experiments that he publishes in 1672. In the late 1660s, Newton starts experimenting with his ’celebrated phenomenon of colors.’ The scientist set up a prism near his window, and projected a spectrum 22 feet onto the far wall. To prove that the prism was not coloring the light, he refracted the light back together. Katja Mater is fascinated by Newton’s clear demonstration that light alone was responsible for color. Her film ‘Searching for White’ (2010) features a white wall in an industrial building, on which an imperfect color wheel is painted. The image starts slowly to tilt and rotate around its axes before speeding up and creats a monochromatic illusion of a single color. A person who enters the frame starts painting the wheel, changing its colors and shifting the wheel from one color to the other, trying to reach the white. The film is a refined game of movement and colour which deals with Newton’s conceptual arrangement of colors around the circumference of a circle.


Invited artist: Maarten Sleeuwits
Maarten Sleeuwits’ objects and sculptures reflect
an experience of an intuitive manner. They originate from phenomenal approach to material constructions and the associations they recall. The artist examines the way physical properties in a sensitive manner may develop.

-

Alexandra Leykauf (b. 1976, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Resent presentations include ‘CHATEAU DE BAGATELLE’, Salle Noire im Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris (solo), ‘Rehabilitation’, WIELS, Brussels and Dorothea von Stetten-Kunstpreis shortlisted exhibition, Kunst Museum Bonn (all 2010). Her book ‘CHATEAU DE BAGATELLE’, was produced in 2010 by Martin van Zomeren and Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris.


Katja Mater (b. 1979, The Netherlands) lives and work in Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited throughout Europe and the US including shows at the Gagosian Gallery in conjunction with the 4th Berlin Biennial in Berlin (2006), Stedelijk Museum Bureau in Amsterdam (2007), ‘Principle Matter’ at V&A gallery, New York and Higher Pictures, New York (2008), FOAM – Photography Museum in Amsterdam and the Dutch Photography Museum in Rotterdam (2009). At the present time Mater is artist-in-resident at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin (DE).


Navid Nuur (b. 1976, Teheran) lives and work in The Hague. His recent solo exhibitions include ‘Glow (Re-)discovering Eindhoven’, Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven (2010), ‘THE VALUE OF VOID’- touring exhibition, Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, De Hallen Museum, Haarlem, and S.M.A.K, Gent ( 2009 - 2010). Recent group presentations include ‘Taking Place’ Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and ‘Invisible Shadows – Images of Uncertainty’, MARTa Herford Museum, Herford (2010). Upcoming solo exhibition will take place in Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, st. Gallen (February 2010)