Irène Hug,
SENSATION & REFLECTION at LAGE EGAL, 2021
At first glimpse the bigger lightbox situated outside on the balcony above LAGE EGAL’s entrance looks like a commercial display placed between others, although it does not aim to attract the interest of a consumer. It refers to the principal sources of all the ideas we have, mentioned by the 18th century English empiricist John Locke.
Language, writing, and text are a common thread in Irène Hug's work. She often plays with the meaning as well as the typographic function of signs, logos and advertising slogans. She does this by appropriating, reworking, or repurposing found materials and transforming them into light boxes, installations, photographs (which she often manipulates), objects, (wood) sculptures, among others. The works become temporary placements on walls and buildings while adding new meaning to existing structures. By doing so, the artist questions our entanglements in everyday consumerism and challenges us to understand the true meaning of things and words behind the surface.
Also on display in the window of LAGE EGAL is the film premiere about the work PARTICOLARE by GIOVANNI ANSELMO that was part of DIE ENDLICHKEIT DER FREIHEIT BERLIN in 1990. The work is organised by the journalist, curator and art historian Sarah Alberti and graphic designer, author, editor Grischa Meyer.
https://lage-egal.net/exhibitions/35890/die-balkone-2-scratching-the-surface/works/
LAGE EGAL
Founded in 2010, LAGE EGAL still regards itself as an experimental Berlin-based laboratory intent on tampering with the prevalent mechanisms of art presentation and mediation in a rather playful way. The emphasis is on curatorial projects that scrutinize and reconsider the stature of exhibitions as such, also as a creative act that repeatedly provides the audience with new ways of viewing art.
LAGE EGAL has set a long-term goal to give artists the opportunity to display their work outside the commercial art market, also as a professional ground for curatorial practice to guest curators. LAGE EGAL also distinguishes itself through its thematic discussions with artist’s books and editions — and accordingly by questioning the original, the copy or reproduction, the duplicate or the series.
Even though the designation 'artist-run space' or ‘project space’ as such suggests a local constant, the concept of the non-profit art space(s) LAGE EGAL ("location no matter") is rather unattached to one specific location. LAGE EGAL is not only a word–play, it also describes exactly the process of a textual and programmatic dynamism and flexibility where the location of the space becomes irrelevant.