Sedimentary Matters
Caline Aoun
May 31 – July 31, 2021
Sedimentary Matters addresses the changeability and the undercurrents of the hidden material and physical world. The seemingly solid and permanent spaces of our lives are not static, but they are made of various events that are kept hidden, that constantly transform the space into a new one. In this exhibition, Caline Aoun encapsulates these hidden events by revealing how the continuous accumulation of matter essentially changes what we see. As we constantly find ways to move through the material, natural, social, and symbolic environments of our lives, they are in fact constantly changing and evolving. In Sedimentary Matters, Aoun brings the unseen to the forefront as she examines how the actions of time can leave deposits and traces, like a river delta, otherwise kept unnoticed or invisible. Aoun also shows that within the process of this gallery and other galleries’ bygone activities across the years, tangible forms are created from the deposition of otherwise invisible traces. These are signs that bear witness to the ever-changing and moving cycles, and rhythms of the spaces and the objects we encounter.
In Condensations of the Invisible Space, a freezer compressor is artificially holding below the freezing point a sheet of aluminum that is accumulating dew and water due to the condensation of the humidity in the space. Here, by employing thermodynamics, this sculptural work transmutes and makes visible the physical form of humidity in the space over the course of its installation, which otherwise would be invisible.
Fictional Accumulation of Real Shadows’ Past is an installation comprising of suspended pieces of cotton fabric taking over an entire wall of the gallery. These pieces of fabric represent the shadows of all the artworks that once hung on that exact wall from many artists’ exhibitions since 2012, hence fictionally accumulating the shadows of the past 9 years of this specific wall’s art activity in one space and at the same time.
Cyan and Yellow, 4 Hours and 42 minutes and Untitled, 8 Meters are two prints that foreground and make visible the material components of a print through space and time. The first by layering over 60 times Cyan and Yellow monochromes on a single paper to a point where traces of the printer’s mechanics start to appear on the surface as well as the tangible nature of the pigment. The second by printing in layers on a translucent film and manually handling the material by pulling the latter while printing in order to show the traffic and movements of the ink head as well as the ink droplets it is in the meantime depositing.
In Traces of Unseeable Excess (Detail), A sprinkle of ink appears on a paper. This is a section from Aoun’s wallpaper installation from a previous exhibition. She had installed a fountain, but instead of having jets of water pumped into the air, jets of ink were being pumped over and over during the entire exhibition. As time passed and as the fountain continually pumped ink, it accumulated and sprayed ink droplets on the walls which were covered with paper and that were nearby causing this sedimentary look of unseeable excess. Here Aoun is interested in re-presenting the traces of these splashes that were effected in a previous exhibition in order to accentuate the natural permeability between exhibitions and how one can leave a token for the next.
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About the artist
Caline Aoun
b. 1983, Beirut, Lebanon / Lives and works in Beirut
Caline Aoun’s work is a focused series of experimental correctives, inversions, and material resting places in a historical moment of peaking digital and virtual noise. By playfully posing the question of what happens when this noise becomes total, Aoun shows in reduced experimental arrangements how inseparably real and virtual worlds are actually linked. Instead of amplifying this media noise further, the artist concentrates it and gives it a material dimension. Through these material reorientations, we are delivered anew to our present location, we are transported to a position where we can see excess brought to equilibrium, noise into a soothing tone, and the information which overwhelms us on all sides into an aesthetic environment that makes it possible to sensually grasp otherwise intangible connections.
Aoun graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design, London, UK in 2005. She received a Postgraduate diploma in Fine Art from the Royal Academy Schools, London, UK in 2009 and earned a Professional Doctorate in Fine Art at the University of East London, London, UK in 2012.
Her works have been recently exhibited at PalaisPopulaire, Berlin, Germany, Sharjah Biennial 14, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, MAXXI, Rome, Italy, Marfa’, Beirut, Lebanon, Centre For Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland, Mosaic Rooms, London, United Kingdom, Casa Árabe, Madrid, Spain, Casa Árabe, Cordoba, Spain.
Caline Aoun was Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2018.