The artist collective Daryoush Asgar and Elisabeth Gabriel work together on their themes, collaborate on their works and work together on the final result. A collaborative project in the truest sense of the word.
They do not reveal to the viewer who painted which hand, who painted which shoe and who painted which extended leg; everything merges into one whole: into one handwriting.
The exhibition "Almost Done Almost Ready", with which we start 2022 in a whimsical and exquisitely painterly way, shows the entire range of the two artists. It is an attempt at fusion, an attempt to combine things and people, to let them become one, and at the same time, in large format, the depiction of the youth generation during the Corona era, which is omnipresent to us, emerges. But only at first glance, because at second glance we encounter the so-called "inconsistencies", the not clearly definable. The artist duo themselves write about the exhibited works:
"Alfred Jarry's pataphysical novel is followed by reflections on the construction of a machine for the study of time (- a text that initially appeared as a separate treatise), which should enable us to isolate ourselves from the effects of duration, of ageing or rejuvenation, a machine that allows those who enclose themselves in it to remain unchanged in time. This machine does not itself move through time, but allows time to pass through without being carried away by it, "as a window pane allows a bullet to pass through without shattering (...), an organism to be pierced without injury by an aseptic needle."
The pictures shown in the exhibition, all of which were created in relative isolation in 2021 under the impression of the pandemic, want to be such "time exploration machines", radically present, with a permeable narrative. Funny. Sad. Monstrous."
With this exhibition, we are very pleased to once again turn our gaze to painting, a painting that carries all facets within itself and also allows for smiling in its appearance. The time in which these works were created was often free of humour and marked by fears, so let us take Asgar/Gabriel's painting as a gift to use our own gaze in a differentiated way and to become aware of the mergers of our own person with our favourite object, the armchair or even time itself.