What does 365 symbolize? For Bendana Pinel Art Contemporain, 365 days represent a first year of discoveries and enthusiasm, punctuated by drawings, paintings, photography, sculpture and video. More than an exhibition, this “First Anniversary Show” should be interpreted as an intangible message or a journey through time. For this occasion, the gallery invited each one of the artists that have collaborated with the gallery to create a work inspired by this subject.
“Plérôme” (Pleroma) in Greek means plenitude and the celestial world that await the Gnostic at the end of his earthly life. The two works presented by Pablo Zuleta Zahr - which are mix of drawings, cuttings, color filters, and scanned images - draw a parallel with the sacred magic formula of Abraxas, which is in Greek Gnosis, the name of the God of the Year. Divided according to the Greek numbering system, and then added, the seven letters of the name equal the number of the yearly cyle, i.e. 365.
Julio Rondo’s diptych « Himmelsstück über Paris » reproduces the exact position of the stars in the Parisian sky at two very precise dates: March 15, 2008, at 16:00, the date of the gallery’s first opening, and March 14, 2009 at 16:00, the first anniversary of the gallery. India Ink, landscapes that commemorate these past 365 days, these celestial papers are a cosmic combination / assemblage which combine everyone’s personal experience: the artists’, the visitors’, the collector’s, the art dealers’, the assistants’...
The meaning of the expression « 365 days » could possibly designate as much the past 365 days as the 365 ones that will follow. Steven Le Priol’s work can be found between these two, between a yearly balance and a forecast. « La main invisible, 365 jours » (The invisible hand, 365 days”) gives a falsely educational vision of the economical crisis that is shaking the planet, by borrowing many elements from the aesthetic of catechism to esoteric iconography. With a falsely naïve treatment, this series of cuttings submits with cruel humor the vision of a mechanic economy flawed by irrational passions.
“La última fiesta” (The last party) is a photograph of a masquerade ball; the image has been perforated and the confetti, which comes from this holes, are of course part of the work. Although happy and colorful, this "Last Day" is not exempted from the melancholy that characterizes the work of Miguel Rothschild.
For this anniversary, Olivier Richon presents History and Origin : Two photographs of Edenic landscapes with titles ironically reminiscent of the Dictionary of Received Ideas by Gustave Flaubert. An anniversary is a celebration of time, as well as of history; monkeys, symbols of imitation, repeat and copy as sometimes does history. Image: monkeys. Title: “History: say it is repeating itself”. An anniversary celebrates a genesis and an evolution; Edenic birds make us think about a happy origin. Image: birds. Title: “Starting point for a philosophical essay about the origin of beings”.
In his videos, sculptures and photographic works, Niklas Goldbach focuses on the dystopian elements of the postmodern urban experience. The video work DAWN was filmed in the abandoned basement floor of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. As a reference to the socially deprived, his work shows around 60 people lying motionless on sleeping bags in the still ramshackle basement floor of the Palais de Tokyo while a mirror ball is slowly rotates- It’s gleaming surface rotates in space as a possible metaphor of time itself.
