Sebastian Gladstone celebrated timo fahler in DUSTOPIA with an opening art party on September 16, 2023. The art of G.V. Rodriguez also opened the same day. Both shows run through October 14, 2023.
Sebastian Gladstone, timo fahler
It is said, in the realm of science, that glass is a state of matter rather than a material. Ineither solid nor liquid, but in between. Frozen in its moment of transition, forever hinting at change. It is called an amorphous liquid––amorphous from the Ancient Greek literally meaning “no form.”
In DUSTOPIA, timo fahler shapes the unshaped; by cutting and connecting pieces of glass and guiding light, by bending rebar into animated bearers of the work, and by molding plaster into body parts that insert the maker’s hand into the work. In his second solo exhibition with the gallery, fahler grasps at the imagined horrors as well as hopes of the future through our collective knowledge of the past. It follows the artist’s ongoing search to point out the relative nothingness in “good” and “bad.” Therefore serveing as a reminder that we both came from and will return to dust.
The show begins and ends with the singular work “us/them, me/you.” This presents a dual nightmare and dreamscape viewers fall into time and again throughout the exhibition. Red and blue clouds evoke both beauty and fear or water and also fire. A brown and a white figure appear to scream but the clear glass representing their voices echoes only silence. Front and center, we see an earthly belly bracing two snake heads facing each other, mouths open and touching, each holding a human head. It is the wake of a (re)birth, a shedding, that could be the end of us–but not of everything. us/them, me/you is a preface to regeneration into an unknown that could only be godly.
timo fahler, amorph elenchi, 2022-23, Stained glass, rebar, steel, concrete, cement, asphalt, 11’H x 12’W x 12’D
timo fahler DUSTOPIA
DUSTOPIA takes us across three chapters of work in which fahler places narratives around AI and surveillance techniques alongside the crumbling façade of American capitalism and imperialism, but intertwines those with fragments of personal joy and fantasy. In chapter one, there are five iconographic works, all of them soldered into found or hand-made fences. This chapter raises the question of freedom’s face.
The art of G.V. Rodriguez will also be celebrated on September 16, 2023 with a run through October 14, 2023.
On view: September 16, 2023 – October 14, 2023
What: DUSTOPIA, timo fahler
Where: Sebastian Gladstone, 5523 Santa Monica Blvd, LA CA, 90038
When: Running through October 14, 2023
Website: https://sebastiangladstone.com
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