Review of a Position
‘Review of a Position’ is a take on urban development by artists
Pim Palsgraaf
Aram Tanis
Hans Wilschut
The ‘Multiscape’ sculptures of Pim Palsgraaf are city scenes literately carried by preserved dead animals or other objects found along the sides of the road. With this subject matter, Pim Palsgraaf show us contradictions between culture and nature. The urban city is seen to overtake nature. One gets the feeling that urbanism is a process which grows like a tumour.
Aram Tanis’ black-&-white photographs show high-rises from angles reminiscent of the aesthetics of ‘New Seeing’ and ‘New Objectivity’ – constructivist in design, these are compositions that foreground the material properties and the size of the respective edifices.
He shows the dynamism of the large city as well as the metropolis in which people remain anonymous and lead anonymous lives. What comes out is a portrait of the entire body of a city, which through precise observation includes not only its topography but also the reveals structural elements of its society and economy, be it only the empty space in a web of functionally undifferentiated urban space.
In his urbanized landscapes, Hans Wilschut shows a recent interest for areas that are changing because of the pressure of globalization. Social and cultural changes, increased activities of tourism, the shifting of the world economy and the demographic growth which have caused differences and dramatic changes in culture and nature.
On the edge of the public and private domain, round ravel borders of cities, Wilschut investigates the areas where changes occur and are made manifest. He does not strive for an objective reproduction of reality. This gives his work a post-documentary character. His urban still lives have most of all a lyric character.