Information sheet

Dolores Zinny & Juan Maidagan
28 May - 13 July 2003
Wednesday - Sunday 13.00 - 18.00 hrs
Gallery Talk by independent curator and writer Lisa le Feuvre 13 July @ 16.00hrs

Dolores Zinny & Juan Maidagan make slight, but distinct interventions into the architecture of galleries, museums and other spaces. Central to their practice is an interest in the relationship between public and private, reality and fiction, object and representation. Zinny & Maidagan's work deals with the status of the individual within larger structures such as political systems, urban plans and the architecture of exhibition spaces.

For The Showroom, Zinny & Maidagan have made a series of works that continue their examination of the power relationship between the individual and the institution. Their project can be read loosely as a critique of how information is currently mediated for the public, reflecting the current uncertainty in global politics.

In the back of the gallery hangs a fabric cover, containing a series of volumes that remain discrete from the gallery space. This work For Unbearable Things, creates an ambiguity between the reading of the fabric cover as being a flat, two-dimensional surface and the reality that it contains three-dimensional forms. The duo thus create the curious suggestion for the viewer that not only is the fabric cover concealing something within it, but that something is being hidden behind it .

Other possible variations of the fabric cover are imagined in a series of collages shown in the front room of the gallery. In these works, the layering of the paper mimics and explores the layers of information that exist between the decision making processes behind global events and their mediation to the public. For example, News Coverage, makes a direct reference to the Modernist design style adopted by CNN for its news screens that apply layered blocks of text and images to communicate separate pieces of information simultaneously. Pentagon, describes another temporary architectural intervention; made from a material used by the United States government that is both light and sound proof. This form examines the relationship between the institutional and the private, and our access to information, making an oblique reference to the lack of transparency in political decision making.

Alongside these works is a collage showing the House of the Eagle, this building in Uruguay was commissioned by a millionaire in the 1940s and has many apocryphal stories surrounding it. Having become abandoned and dilapidated, the inclusion of this image explores the gap between appearance and reality.

Zinny & Maidagan have chosen two loaded motifs; a black flag and a red sun for the floor painting in the front space. This work Kein Banner in der Sonne, could be seen as an anti-war protest. The image depicted is ambiguous, as it is unclear whether the flag is on the point of obscuring the sun, or if the sun will burn up the flag. Visitors to the gallery are faced by the decision to either walk across the image, or find a path around it.

The duo's work follows the tendency which examines architecture and space through visual art practice, as demonstrated by the work of Gordon Matta-Clark. Zinny & Maidagan's work Variations, 2000 presented a street sign based on Matta-Clark's Food Project. This shows the original sign, Comidas Criollas, as it appears in the altered Richard Landrey photograph of 1971. Zinny & Maidagan pay tribute to Matta-Clark's influence on their practice through the inclusion of a projection of Variations in one corner of the gallery. As with the collage of the House of the Eagle, the introduction and placing of this work causes a slight, but very deliberate disruption to the flow of the exhibition.

Dolores Zinny & Juan Maidagan studied Fine Art and Medicine respectively in Rosario, Argentina. They have worked collaboratively since 1990 and are currently based in Berlin on a DAAD residency. Their exhibition at The Showroom will be their first solo show in Britain, during the summer Zinny & Maidagan's work can be seen at the 50th Venice Biennale in The Structure of Survival, curated by Carlos Basualdo.

On Sunday 13 July at 16.00hrs, independent curator and writer Lisa le Feuvre will present a gallery talk on Dolores Zinny & Juan Maidagan's work in relationship to Gordon Matta-Clark's practice.

A publication will be available during the exhibition.

For further information please contact Kirsty Ogg or Andy Marsh on 020 8983 4115.

The Showroom is financially assisted by Arts Council England.

Zinny & Maidagan's project being presented in association with Visiting Arts.

The Showroom would like to thank Karin Eklund and Delfina Studio Trust for their assistance.

This document comes from the Showroom Gallery's
Dolores Zinny & Juan Maidagan archive

For more information, visit
http://www.theshowroom.org/