#aurelien froment

Aurelien Froment, 2030, 2008

For Immediate Release

Exhibition:                   Aurélien Froment and Ryan Gander

                                         Dark After After Dark

Dates:                           March 30 – May 1, 2010

Reception:              Tuesday March 30, 2010 from 6 to 8pm

Khastoo Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Aurélien Froment and Ryan Gander.  The exhibition consists of two separate film and video projections of singular objects in motion sharing the same voice over narrator, who accompanies the spectator from one sequence to the next, and vice versa. In Gander’s Best work EVER EVER EVEREVER EVER , 2010, a 16mm film projects a computer manipulated sequence of a mini DV tape floating through space. A sticker on the tape reveals a title handwritten in blue ink: “The violent tapes,” referring to the series of the same name by David Lamelas.  Froment’s film features a Phacellophora camtschatica, more commonly known as the egg-yolk jellyfish, as it drifts and swims behind the glass display of its tank home at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  

Virtual to real, man-made to live, outer space to deep sea and beyond, coupled with one voice that takes us to and fro, the accumulation of scenes we encounter could just as well be documentary as fictional. Herein lies the transmission of “information” and the grid that connects the production of art and it’s perception, the role of the viewer, and more crucially perhaps, the esoteric meanings trapped between time and space. The simultaneous emission of projections and audio progress in ever larger circles, placing emphasis on significant functional elements in the micro (Berkeley Systems’ quirky 1989 flying toaster screensaver) and rippling out to penetrate even the edges of macro-reference: electronics, nature, and galaxies. However, in keeping with Froment and Gander’s interest in the cracks within these systems, a consciousness homes in on the transcendent. In the darkened space confronting gelatinous tentacles and kinetic tapes, we can reach a purpose less easily defined; a black hole in the paradigm of analysis that hits more mysterious inner workings beyond reference points and interpretations.  In this place, somewhere dark and vague but uniquely substantive, we float in and out of body and mind.

Aurélien Froment is a French artist who currently lives in Dublin, Ireland. Ryan Gander was born in Chester and currently lives and works in London, England.  This is the first time the two artists have collaborated on an exhibition in Los Angeles. 

Pulmo Marina by Aurélien Froment was commissioned by the Independent Cinema Office and LUX with support from the National Lottery through Arts Council England.