Hugo Markl at Eva Presenhuber
From January 16th to February 27th, Eva Presenhuber Gallery in Zurich presents new work by American artist Hugo Markl.
Press Release
One day 1917, while his director was out sick with a hangover, John Ford made his first feature. VOICE OF JOHN FORD: They brought a lot of people out from the east. I mean, the opening of Universal City, Carl Laemmle had a lot of beauty contestants there. And we had a Western street and a bunch of cowboys. And Mr. Bernstein came riding up and he says: “You’re the first assistant, you gotta shoot something while he’s here. There’s a big bunch of people, over 100.” I said, “What will I do?” He says, “ Do anything. You know, you let them ride back and forth.” So they rode through the streets shooting at everything, you know, for no reason at all. And I said to Mr. Bernstein, “And how was that?” And he says, “Fine.” He says he talked with Mr. Laemmle. He says, “Keep on working.” I says, “What will I do?” He says, “Have them ride back.” So they rode back shooting. Then he says, “ Can’t you have a couple of falls in there?” I said, “Oh, that will be easy.” But these girls are all very pretty. And the cowboys are sort of straightening their kerchiefs up straightening their hats and trying to look as pretty as possible and shining up to these gals. So, I says, “I’ll fire a pistol, and you, you and you do a horse fall all fall off your horse.” Well, the cowboys looked at one another. So I fired the shot. And then every cowboy – I think there were 30 of them. They all fell off their horses. And I said to Mr. Bernstein, “That’s about it, isn’t it?” He says, “Oh, no, keep on going. What can you do now?” So I put a lot of kerosene and gasoline on the place and burnt the town down. Of course, the sets were cheap. You know, just built of plywood. And everything didn’t cost anything. So I burnt the town down, and they thought it was great. And they had a picture coming up with Harry Carey. And they had no director, and Mr. Laemmle says: “That John Ford, he yells real loud. He’d make a good director.”
Opening: January 15, 6 to 8 pm
Images and text privided by Eva Presenhuber Gallery
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May 16th, 2010 at 11:03 am
far-out, a hounting concept, this is a continually penetrating vision of tradition in general art quarters about tradition that perhaps is not dysfunctional as “normal” conceptions of artists would like to believe, there is a general equiuvalence between the two concepts; in that show drawings are not just drawings thats for sure, i don’t like some of them at all .. but they stay.
liu yan, ny
July 18th, 2011 at 7:27 am
Please check on Hugo Markls BROWN exhibition!
Critical response
American critic Franesco Banane gave the exhibition an extremely positive review after its world premiere at the Eva Presenhuber gallery in Zurich, Switzerland, the Andre Schlechtriem gallery in Manhattan, New York and AMP gallery in Athens, Greece in March 2009 (when it still went by the name “BROWN”). He called the exhibition “a work that is absolutely genuine, artistically satisfying and technically comparable to the best artworks being made anywhere. I have no reservations in describing it as a great moment in World art”.
August 19th, 2011 at 7:40 am
Clear in form and composition, powerful in scale and siting, this art is widely considered a masterpiece. The artist drew upon and assimilated both the postmodern and archetypes of art, and abstracted and transformed, to a degree of utter purity, lasting ideas from many eras.
November 17th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
Hugo Markl is one of a handful of contemporary artists who have shaped the current state of art. Like Dan Graham, Jenny Holzer, and even Damien Hirst, the contemporary artist has gone from performance to installation to drawings, from video to painting to sculpture, crossing every line of artistry to make way for new artists (many of which have had work featured on this very site). They all have their hallmarks, conceptual posts to hang their career on, where–when you see it–you know it is a Graham or a Holzer or a Hirst.
For Hugo Markl, it is his installation works that define him. Similar to his installation peers Maurizio Cattelan, Urs Fischer, and Damien Hirst, Hugo Markl took his artistic concepts and filtered them through installations to modify ground-plan areas and architecture, echoing his work in video, prints, drawing, and sculpture. Many of his sculptures use codes and signs, unlike other code/sign artists who were using the medium to create and project an unwavering emotion onto a space. Markl made his code/sign pieces minimalist/maximalist emotions: like codes and signs you see on any computer, any storefront. Markl took this idea and embedded a text, story, and emotion to it, an incomparable achievement.
The BROWN pictures series is what many consider to be Mark’s masterpiece. Sad and hopeful, BROWN runs through each possible urban, rural, and pneumatic way to live and search for post-post-postmodern life in a blaze of intellectual winnings. Each picture (“BROWN OREGON,” “BROWN NEVADA,” “BROWN TEXAS,” etc.) fulfills a vision with its open, light, heavy, or whatever material it may be. It creates the atmosphere and provides a surprisingly profound commentary on life, illustrating inner movements with each picture, reiterating just how sucked in life can be. In the end, BROWN resonates with all 57 pictures, blindingly beautiful and a little overwhelming.
BROWN, like all Markl work, play with inner dimension and virtual architecture, and human emotion. They are absolutely beautiful and undoubtedly post-post-postmodern. Markl is definitely an artist whose work you should do your damnedest to see: they are somber, they are fun, and they are iconic. If you get a chance to see his work somewhere, I don’t wanna see nothing but smoke coming out of your ass on your way to a gallery!
S. Potter
November 17th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Thank You!
April 10th, 2012 at 9:37 am
Apropos Einfluss: HUGO MARKL Man muss die Ausstellung „The birth of peter builts and the death of hugo markl because I no longer am I am everybody i am everything“ bei Hauser & Wirth und den Katalog/Text genau analysieren, und angemessen bewerten. Die Ausstellungkonzeption (realisiert 1999) und das Katalogkonzept (realisiert 2001) zu dieser Einzelausstellung hat das vorweggenommen was in den darauffolgenden 10 Jahren in der Gegenwartkunst an Veränderung passieren wird -insbesondere die Veränderung in der kuratorschen Praxis (Jörg Heiser, Jens Hoffmann, Hans-Ulrich Obrist) und die Veränderung der künstlerischen Praxis (Christoph Schlingensief)– und das wurde in dieser Ausstellung auf modellprädikative Art in eine Installation umgesetzt. Das unmissverständliche Konzept wurde als Text im Katalog Peter Builts TBOPBATDOHMBI NLAIAEIAE abgedruckt.
April 10th, 2012 at 9:40 am
Apropos Einfluss: HUGO MARKL Man muss die Ausstellung „The birth of peter builts and the death of hugo markl because I no longer am I am everybody i am everything“ bei Hauser & Wirth und den Katalog/Text genau analysieren, und angemessen bewerten. Die Ausstellungkonzeption (realisiert 1999) und das Katalogkonzept (realisiert 2001) zu dieser Einzelausstellung hat das vorweggenommen was in den darauffolgenden 10 Jahren in der Gegenwartkunst an Veränderung passieren wird -insbesondere die Veränderung in der kuratorschen Praxis (Joerg Heiser, Jens Hoffmann, Hans-Ulrich Obrist) und die Veränderung der künstlerischen Praxis (Christoph Schlingensief)– und das wurde in dieser Ausstellung auf modellprädikative Art in eine Installation umgesetzt. Das unmissverständliche Konzept wurde als Text im Katalog Peter Builts TBOPBATDOHMBI NLAIAEIAE abgedruckt.
Vielen Dank
Paul