Magnus Andersen at Neue Alte Brücke

(link)

An exhibition titled "Stockholm Syndrome" which is "a condition in which hostages develop a psychological alliance with their captors during captivity." Which CAWD called Andersen's last Neue Alte Brücke show: "which we, [Andersen's] visual hostages, on a long enough timeline, learn to love..." Stockholm Syndrome is thought to happen because "the victim’s need to survive is stronger than his impulse to hate the person who has created the dilemma." In order to survive one must begin to identify and find compassion for the captor: people held captive for decades will defend their captors in court. An analogy could be made for a decades long acclimatization to certain types of aesthetic abuse, where an artworld begins to actually like the Jeff Koons, or Josh Smith.  On a long enough timeline they begin to appear quaint, lovable, despite their demonics. To deny it would simply place you outside it. And so, "Andersen knows that to survive is to triumph. And so with defeat you must accept its march into visibility." You will be seeing more of these, and as always with hideous painting, "half the fun is learning to love it."


see too: Ida Ekblad at Herald St., Josh Smith at David Zwirner, Magnus Andersen at Neue Alte Brücke

Magnus Andersen at Neue Alte Brücke & Dorothy Iannone at Air de Paris

It's impossible to measure earnestness. Time de-ironizes and jest is made serious by attention. Saying one is more authentic, or by comparing hierarchically these two is a set-up for defeat. You could say (with a long enough timeline) "the necessities of circumstance turn to virtue." Andersen knows that to survive is to triumph. And so with defeat you must accept its march into visibility. Andersen even got a theme-song for his parade. You can like one more than the other, but you can't say no to it, and like Darren Bader, the one willing to destroy something is the one who controls it, to paraphrase Dune. Thus Andersen straps a bomb to his chest walks into the vault of images, which we his visual hostages, on a long enough timeline, learn to love, and pied man leading children to their deaths.


See too: Darren Bader at Kölnischer Kunstverein, Dorothy Iannone at Peres Projects, Group Show at Neue Alte Brücke

Group Show at Neue Alte Brücke

(link)
Artists: Magnus Andersen, George Rippon, Anna Zacharoff, Julien Nguyen
Exhibition Title: Late European Decadence

Neue Alte Brücke set the trend that come full circle to be greet with their own franchise deemed International Style, and so if this doesn't look “fresh” it at least looks current, hegemonically so; possibly the most important thing today is that art look fine, just fine, without an excess of presence and an irony to cut its own heel, a bridge to the new old decadence.


See too : Transatlantic Transparency at Mathew