MIKE BOURSCHEID. Thank you so much for the flowers 13 May 26 November 2017

Transcription

1 MIKE BOURSCHEID Thank you so much for the flowers 13 May 26 November 2017 LUXEMBOURGPAVILION.LU PRESS RELEASE Curator: Kevin Muhlen Assistant Curator: Stilbé Schroeder Commissioner: Ministry of Culture, Luxembourg Organizer: Casino Luxembourg Forum d art contemporain Address Ca del Duca Corte del Duca Sforza San Marco 3052, Venezia Opening Thursday 11 May p.m p.m. Performance, Mike Bourscheid, Thank you so much for the flowers, 6.30 p.m. - 8 p.m. Afternoon party Friday 12 May p.m. - 7 p.m. Open Table / Tavola Aperta With Mike Bourscheid. Thursday 25 May 2017, lunchtime, at Central Pavilion, Giardini. Opening hours From 13 May to 26 November a.m. - 6 p.m. Closed on Tuesdays Mike Bourscheid has been selected to represent Luxembourg at the La Biennale di Venezia with the exhibition Thank you so much for the flowers. With self-effacing playfulness, Mike Bourscheid s costumes, altered domestic objects, musical pieces and performances recount cryptic stories about gender identification, familial inheritance and cultural history. Always, Bourscheid s work seeks to transform traditional understandings of art s role in our daily lives, from our loves to our routine work. Raised in southern Luxembourg by a seamstress mother and a welder father, Mike Bourscheid often uses performance and sculpture to interweave stereotypes of masculine and feminine labor. Here, the Luxembourg pavilion provides a uniquely hospitable atmosphere for this intimate approach. Each of the pavilion s five rooms unfolds its own enigmatic narrative. Upon entering the pavilion, viewers will pass through a long corridor lined with birch panels and antique wooden cookie molds a preface to multiple curious tangles of familial and social custom. At the end of this passage opens a large room containing The Goldbird Variations (2016), which is emblematic of Bourscheid s engagement with work, fashion and sexual identity. This handmade yellow costume is constituted of a ruffled skirt and a billowing protuberance, extending from the groin. Although The Goldbird Variations is hung as a sculpture throughout the show s duration, Bourscheid will repeatedly perform within the costume. Assuming statuesque poses, with hands covered in luxurious gauntlets and feet clad in leather sandals, Bourscheid will be backed by peppy techno music. This scene could be straight off of a haute couture runway. Only Bourscheid doesn t quite fit the physical profile of a fashion model. And so both he and the work feel slightly, joyfully out of place. In an adjacent room, walls decorated in potato prints backdrop a pair of costumes titled This is how I imagine love (2015). With enormous pink and silver heads, festooned with handcrafted mustaches and supported by prosthetic apparatuses, these costumes draw viewers into a quasi-theatrical world. While one features pink pants complete with a cartoonish codpiece,

2 the other is frilled, and has the surface of an iridescent fish. The potato prints, seeming the work of a cottage industry wallpaper manufacturer, have in fact been produced by the artist. This detail is important not because Bourscheid fetishizes the artist s touch, but because the cultivation of such eccentric skills is a way for him to learn about different modalities of labor, through manual involvement. In this environment, the culturally esteemed activity of artmaking seems to have intermixed with domestic, laborious, and educational rituals. Bourscheid s method of playing with prescribed cultural and bodily behaviors continues in a series of ornate aprons, made from leather, steel, hair, eggs, ribbon, and musical recorders. When a dining room chair appears, hybridized with a children s writing desk and a coat hanger, it seems as though an unseen trickster has visited the pavilion, in order to short-circuit the tasks that we habitually ascribe to objects. Even as the costumes are undoubtedly ritualistic, their power maintains when the artist s body disappears. Bourscheid s decision to display the outfits as sculptures illuminates the down time that surrounds performances, before thespian garb merges with performer. This sensitivity to the peripheral moments of artmaking runs through Bourscheid s work. Embracing absurdity in the most caring way, Thank you so much for the flowers testifies to the fact that art is not defined by objects alone, but by processes and stories through which they move. Mike Bourscheid Lives and works in Luxembourg and Vancouver Mike Bourscheid, born in 1984 in Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg), studied at the Université d Aix-Marseille (France) and Universität der Künste Berlin (Germany). Today, he lives and works in Luxembourg and in Vancouver, Canada. Recent exhibitions include: Access Gallery Vancouver (Canada), Nanaimo Art Gallery (Canada), Centre d art L Œil de Poisson in Quebec City (Canada) and Centre d art Nei Liicht in Dudelange (Luxembourg). In 2015 he was nominated for the Prix d art Robert Schuman; in 2010 he won the IBB- Preis für Fotografie. Education University of Arts Berlin (UdK), Germany, Graduate with Prof. Lothar Baumgarten (BFA); Master student with Michaela Meise (MFA), Université d Aix-Marseille, France, Bachelor in fine arts Selected Solo Exhibitions 2017 Thank you so much for the flowers, 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy 2016 From Me to You. Forever, Centre d art L Œil de Poisson, Quebec City, QC, Canada 2016 You inherited that from your father! We dance our name, Gallery 295, Vancouver, BC, Canada

3 2015 ehe Ehe, Galerie Nei Liicht, Dudelange, Luxembourg 2011 Waldi auf dem Dach, Galerie Traversee, Munich, Germany Selected Group Exhibitions 2017 Nosbaum and Reding Art Projects, Luxembourg art fair, Luxembourg 2016 Charles, insitu, Berlin, Germany 2015 Robert Schuman Preis, Trier, Germany 2015 Recordings, Kunstverein Hamburger Bahnhof, Germany 2015 Spirit Gum, Nanaimo Art Gallery, Nanaimo, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2015 Far away so close, Access Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2015 Regards sans limites, CNA, Luxembourg 2014 Flipping the coin, Alexander Levy Gallery, Berlin, Germany 2014 Record release of Der Hammel von Kouver, Berghain, Berlin, Germany 2014 Johannes hatte gelogen, Field Contemporary, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2014 Alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei, Yactac, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2014 Festival de la Photo, Strasbourg, France 2013 You I Landscape, Triennale of Luxembourg, Luxembourg 2013 Soloists, Dynamo Arts Association, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2013 Die Wurst als Zeitmesser, Trench Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2012 Gute Karten, Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin, Germany 2011 Welde Fotopreis, Kunstmuseum, Mannheim, Germany 2010 Studio, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany 2010 Vantage Points, Galerie Traversee, Munich, Germany 2010 Schöne Aussichten, Investitionsbank Berlin, Berlin, Germany 2009 Take a breath, MK Galerie, Berlin, Germany 2009 Taken for stranger, Das Appartment, Berlin, Germany Residencies 2015 From me to you. Forever, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada 2014 The Universe and other Systems with Shary Boyle, Banff, AB, Canada Performances 2016 From Me to You. Forever, Centre d art L Œil de Poisson, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada 2015 Johannes hatte gelogen, Galerie Nei Liicht, Dudelange, Luxembourg 2015 You inherited that from your father! We dance our name, Nanaimo Art Gallery, Nanaimo, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2015 Introducing myself to the Canada Geese, Simeonstift, Trier, Germany 2014 Introducing myself to the Canada Geese, Berghain, Berlin, Germany 2014 Alles hat ein Ende nur die Wurst hat zwei, Yactac, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2014 Carlos Mayo in Der Schuld der Scham, Banff, AB, Canada 2012 Saxosex, Trench Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada 2012 Introducing myself to the Canada Geese, Trench Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada Awards and Grants 2015 Shortlisted for the Robert Schuman Prize 2014 Residency grant at the Banff Centre, AB, Canada 2013 Project-promotion grant Regards sans limites, Luxembourg 2012 Centre national de l audiovisuel (CNA), Luxembourg

4 2011 Shortlisted for the Welde Photography Award, Mannheim, Germany 2010 Winner of the Photography Prize of the IBB Bank Berlin (with Cyrill Lachauer), Germany Books and exhibition catalogues 2015 Prix d art Robert Schuman, Trier, Germany 2015 So Far So Close, Access Gallery, Vancouver, BC 2014 Regards sans limites, Centre André Malraux, Hazebrouck, France 2013 You I Landscape, Triennale of Luxembourg Kevin Muhlen, Director, Casino Luxembourg Forum d art contemporain After joining the team at Casino Luxembourg Forum d art contemporain in 2004, art historian Kevin Muhlen (*1977, Luxembourg) was appointed artistic director of the art centre in His artistic programme is mainly based on solo exhibitions by international artists that result from a long-term follow-up and support of the latter. Kevin Muhlen initiated the artist-in-residency programme at Casino Luxembourg. In 2016, on the occasion of Casino Luxembourg s 20th anniversary, he supervised the works on the new architectural design and the reorganization of the institution. Besides curating the exhibitions at Casino, he is regularly invited to organize exhibitions internationally. Kevin Muhlen also writes for exhibition catalogues and artist books. He s the president of the committee for art in public spaces in Luxembourg. The jury Press meetings at the Press breakfast: Thursday 11 May 2017, 9.30 a.m a.m. Thank you so much for the flowers by Mike Bourscheid has been selected in May 2016 by a jury composed of Daria de Beauvais, curator, Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Claudine Hemmer, Ministry of Culture, Luxembourg; Kevin Muhlen, director, Casino Luxembourg Forum d art contemporain, Franziska Nori, director, Frankfurter Kunstverein; Su-Mei Tse, artist. Additional press meeting: Friday 12 May 2017, during the Afternoon party, 2 p.m. - 7 p.m. RSVP for the press meetings: One-on-one interviews with the artist and/or the curator may be organized upon request. The official representation of Luxembourg at the 57th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia is financed by the Ministry of Culture, Luxembourg. The coordination of the project is under the auspices of Casino Luxembourg Forum d art contemporain. With the support of:

5 Mike Bourscheid, Portrait, Copyright Mike Bourscheid.

6 Mike Bourscheid, Thank you so much for the flowers, Copyright Mike Bourscheid. Production photo 2017.

7 Mike Bourscheid, The Goldbird Variations, Sculpture, performance, audio, Realized with the support of L Œil de Poisson, Quebec. Photo: Audrey Careau. Courtesy Mike Bourscheid.

8 Exhibition view Mike Bourscheid Thank you so much for the flowers / The Goldbird Variations (detail), La Biennale di Venezia. Copyright Mike Bourscheid.

9 Exhibition view Mike Bourscheid Thank you so much for the flowers / The Goldbird Variations (detail), La Biennale di Venezia. Copyright Mike Bourscheid.

10 Exhibition view Mike Bourscheid Thank you so much for the flowers / The Goldbird Variations / Idealverein (detail), La Biennale di Venezia. Copyright Mike Bourscheid.

11 Exhibition view Mike Bourscheid Thank you so much for the flowers / Idealverein (detail), La Biennale di Venezia. Copyright Mike Bourscheid.

12 Mike Bourscheid, This is how I imagine love, Sculpture, performance, vinyl album, Courtesy the artist.

13 Mike Bourscheid, The Oracle, Copyright Mike Bourscheid.

14 Mike Bourscheid, The wellbeing of things: a 5 km race, Video still, Courtesy the artist.

15 Watch the exhibition trailer online: