DINA DANISH
Double bubble gum, bubbles double
29 August – 05 October, 2013
“Description”
Barbara Seiler Galerie is proud to announce the second solo exhibition of Amsterdam-based Egyptian artist Dina Danish’s (* 1981, Paris, F). Her body of work combines conceptual art’s focus on language and structure with an interest in failure and misunderstanding, rendering her projects both conceptually solid and amusing. Recurring features of Danish’s work like humour, misunderstanding and absurdity, the highlighting mundane movements or expressions and the approach to experiment with a variety of media congregate particularly in her on- going investigation of tongue twisters. While some works explore how to succeed at a tongue twister in writing, the visualization of tongue twisters serves as another alternative to uttering them. In a series of constructed photographs, such as ‘Four Friends Fighting for the Telephone’, one in which four of the characters from the hit series Friends battle in boxing outfits with a phone hovering above them against a jet black background, the artist brings these tongue-twisters to life.
Likewise in certain reference to the title of the exhibition ‘On Chewing Gum’, an essay and a number of works including metal sculptures, is based on Danish’s ongoing research about chewing gum and its use in contemporary art and cinema. It was H.G. Frankfurt’s book On Bullshit, an academic yet humorous study on the concept of bullshitting that inspired Danish to explore the seemingly banal aspects of chewing gum in contemporary art and cinema: the exploration include investigations on the symbolism of the repetitive act of the chewing of gum in art and literature, its relationship to gender and sexual orientation in cinema, as well as its formal use in contemporary art and finally its connection to language. „It started out as an essay based on a collection of art works and cinematic footage that use chewing gum and the different reasons behind it,“ Danish explains. The artist is also interested in the formal qualities of gum. She had been collecting works by different artists who have used chewing gum as a medium. Like in other works, Danish takes on a seemingly mundane topic, and turns it into a serious investigation.
‘Live From the Aquarium’ combines footage of the audience of a tennis match with the one of visitors at an aquarium. In the video, a crowd walks through the gigantic aquarium at Dubai’s largest shopping centre, Dubai Mall, as a sports commentator describes their every move as if he were commentating on a sports event. This juxtaposition of one activity, visitors in an aquarium, with the narration of another, a sports match, underlines the absurdity of them both and, in combination, creates humorous as well as provocative moments. Furthermore, Danish is interested in the idea of an imaginary audience as if one crowd watches other crowds, altering the pattern of perception as we are watching the people who are watching the fish.
Most recently, Danish won the Celeste Curator’s Choice Award and participated in group exhibitions, To Scrap a Proportion at Wilfried Lenz in Rotterdam; Bourgeois Leftovers at the De Appel Art Centre, and Shape Shifting at Castrum Peregrini in Amsterdam. Danish’s works were exhibited at various venues including Kunsthall Oslo, SFMOMA in San Francisco, SpazioA in Italy.
Likewise in certain reference to the title of the exhibition ‘On Chewing Gum’, an essay and a number of works including metal sculptures, is based on Danish’s ongoing research about chewing gum and its use in contemporary art and cinema. It was H.G. Frankfurt’s book On Bullshit, an academic yet humorous study on the concept of bullshitting that inspired Danish to explore the seemingly banal aspects of chewing gum in contemporary art and cinema: the exploration include investigations on the symbolism of the repetitive act of the chewing of gum in art and literature, its relationship to gender and sexual orientation in cinema, as well as its formal use in contemporary art and finally its connection to language. „It started out as an essay based on a collection of art works and cinematic footage that use chewing gum and the different reasons behind it,“ Danish explains. The artist is also interested in the formal qualities of gum. She had been collecting works by different artists who have used chewing gum as a medium. Like in other works, Danish takes on a seemingly mundane topic, and turns it into a serious investigation.
‘Live From the Aquarium’ combines footage of the audience of a tennis match with the one of visitors at an aquarium. In the video, a crowd walks through the gigantic aquarium at Dubai’s largest shopping centre, Dubai Mall, as a sports commentator describes their every move as if he were commentating on a sports event. This juxtaposition of one activity, visitors in an aquarium, with the narration of another, a sports match, underlines the absurdity of them both and, in combination, creates humorous as well as provocative moments. Furthermore, Danish is interested in the idea of an imaginary audience as if one crowd watches other crowds, altering the pattern of perception as we are watching the people who are watching the fish.
Most recently, Danish won the Celeste Curator’s Choice Award and participated in group exhibitions, To Scrap a Proportion at Wilfried Lenz in Rotterdam; Bourgeois Leftovers at the De Appel Art Centre, and Shape Shifting at Castrum Peregrini in Amsterdam. Danish’s works were exhibited at various venues including Kunsthall Oslo, SFMOMA in San Francisco, SpazioA in Italy.
