Volume 80 of "Parkett" features Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Mark Grotjahn and the team of Allora & Calzadilla.
Lyotard spoke of the philosopher who gives us something to look at. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster's "chambers" do just that--providing a sort of real-life mise-en-scène expressed in open-ended rooms with sparse furniture arrangements. In Los Angeles painter Mark Grotjahn's suave strokes of frozen color, "bands and chevrons jostle for control of the surface plane like fractured tectonic plates poised to rupture..." according to essayist Gary Garrels. Grotjahn's surfaces boldly hold the wall with an intense physicality that harkens back to Abstract Expressionism, where the proportions of the canvas and the physicality of the paint itself fully engaged the viewer. Sculptor-interventionists Allora & Calzadilla create politically charged works for the gallery as well as the street. In one recent work, we encounter a life-sized concrete military bunker with a trombone slide poking through one of its embrasures. The hidden musical ensemble performs a host of classic war songs, marches and battle hymns as well as an odd rendition of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It." With texts and contributions by Hamza Walker, Patricia Falguières, Pamela Echeverria, Philippe Parreno, Daniel Birnbaum, Gary Garrels, Douglas Fogle, Hans Rudolf Reust, Yates McKee and Jaleh Mansoor, Christian Rattemeyer, Lyle Rexer and Adrian Notz and an insert by Ryan Gander.