Galerie Maria Bernheim is delighted to present a duo project by Swiss artist Miriam Laura Leonardi (b.1985) and American artist Juan Antonio Olivares (b.1988) for LISTE 2019.
Miriam Laura Leonardi’s work transgresses medium to create a world where art historical references are intertwined with literature, cinema and obscure pop culture imagery. Looking to overcome and open a canon devoted to white male icons, like a secret club, she uses these references to create unique works, often setting herself as the centre of the artwork. For this presentation, Miriam Laura Leonardi presents a new set of sculptures, “Loved” which will consist of 10 souvenir Basel snow-globes in forms of hearts painted monochromatically and lying on their side on slim pedestals. Leonardi ensures that it is impossible to see what is under the globe and that it remains hidden. The souvenirs only attest of the local presence of artist, of the possible buyer as well as of the fair itself. However, the city name remains readable on the bottom of the relief. The changed significance of the product is reinforced by the fact that the snow-globes are lying on their sides as if toppled over. Leonardi displays also a new work focused on art historical inspirations, notably referencing Marcel Duchamp and a modern history of sculpture. Entitled “Tonsure Nuova”, it draws references to two intertwined imageries. In 1919 (some say 1921), Marcel Duchamp shaved five-pointed stars in the back of his head and had his friend Man Ray photograph him, a year prior to the appearance of his alter-ego, Rrose Sélavy. In 2002, Carol Rama made Tonsure (Omaggio a Marcel Duchamp), a mixed media work on paper in which Duchamp’s tonsure pattern is interpreted as a meteor shower. Hence, Leonardi continues to transform Rama’s drawing into the sculpture “Tonsure Nuova,” turning the original hairstyle into a hair accessory. This new body of work continues to explore a crucial point of conversation that describes the influence of the male gaze as well as the disregard of art history towards female artists.
Juan Antonio Olivares, born in Puerto Rico and based in New York whose work deals with fundamental questions about family, loss, separation, and contemporary politics, will present a complete new set of drawings that are a continuation of his interest in visualizing hypothetical situations and scenes. This new series of graphite on paper depicts images beyond the capability of being seen by the naked eye such as the scenes of space that are actually all hypothetical simulations and based on observations of the Trappist telescope in Northern Chile. The black hole drawings are simulations of the black hole that is not essentially visible and only observable by the behavior of light around it, which implies that one exists. The drawings of planets are visualizations of the Trappist-1 solar system, recently discovered, which consists of seven earth-like and temperate planets orbiting a star. They are meant to be thought of in combination with the images of celestial bodies such as a macroscopic view of semen and an xray cross-section of a blowjob.
Both artists have received international institutional attention from museums such as the Whitney Museum, NYC for Olivares or FriArt Kunsthalle, Switzerland for Leonardi.
