ART
Haim Steinbach |
Written 30 January |
Saturday 25 April, 11:00Galerie Almine Rech, 75003 [map]Haim Steinbach
For the past 30 years,
Haim Steinbach has been exploring the theme of the humble shelf. Like a contemporary archaeologist, he uses shelves to present objcts taken from daily life. The artist’s decision to display similar items side by side, arranged according to the objects’ social or cultural connotations, is intended to provoke what Steinbach terms “psychological anxiety” and to question the nature of contemporary fetishes. Steinbach’s works are designed for specific exhibition spaces, sometimes responding to existing signs and sometimes contradicting the site with a kind of visual interference.
“When I began working with objects in the late 1970s, most objects I employed were used objects that I got from flea markets and yard sales…The idea of a desire for a "cultural object-as-commodity," something which "exists outside," intrigues me because I believe that what exists outside eventually comes inside. A "commodity object," once acquired, becomes internalized.” Haim Steinbach from an interview for Journal of Contemporary Art.
