Artists Space

New Works
Aloïs Godinat

June 15 – July 28, 2007

An exhibition of new works by Aloïs Godinat, his first solo presentation in a US institution.

A large black speaker rests at an angle in the middle of a wood floor. On the walls, a red cloth with black polka dots, a black and white photograph, and a taped black square with an X and horizontal line through the center are displayed.
Aloïs Godinat: New Works. Installation view, Artists Space, 2007. Photo: Bill Orcutt. [A large black speaker rests at an angle in the middle of a wood floor. On the walls, a red cloth with black polka dots, a black and white photograph, and a taped black square with an X and horizontal line through the center are displayed.]

For his first exhibition in the United States, Aloïs Godinat presents new works. They include Dechirure, a torn poster applied directly to the wall and Untitled, a minimal X shape pattern held within a square, both made of thin fabric, a wall structure seemingly hard edged from afar, but loose on the edges upon closed inspection. A sculpture stands in the middle of the space: a speaker, hovering, off kilter, on one of its lower edges. It remains in this precarious position due the small object created by Godinat, a plastic wedge. While this object maintains its function, at the same time it assumes, albeit quietly and in the most minimal manner, a sculptural, transformative role. We are left with a dark cube, standing in equilibrium on its corner, diffusing the sound a beating drum, the announcement for a spectacular finale never to happen or the public address never to be made.

Quietly irreverent, Godinat proceeds from a reflection on the tradition of the abstract and concrete avant garde. He develops a vocabulary, using modest gestures rather than heroic ones, as a means to explore the minimal possibilities of creating. He makes it clear that the breakthrough ideas of the avant garde in art history came with economical gestures. One sometimes forgets that Yves Klein’s blue pigment was originally the cheapest and easiest to find pigment in Paris. There is evolution when there is economy.

NEW WORKS: ALOÏS GODINAT Exhibition Booklet

This project space and accompanying publication are made possible through support from CAMPARI and Pro Helvetia.

    A black cube-shaped speaker sits, tilted upwards, in the middle of a room with wooden floors and white walls. On a wall to the left of the image is a printed image of a fragment of a face with an open mouth, the skin painted in red, blue, and yellow. On a wall to the right are two printed works, one an illustration of a figure in black and white but with a section of the image above the figure's head blocked out with white space, another is a red and blue polka dot pattern in a hand-cut shape. On the wall in the middle of the room is a small white shelf with a small flat object on top of it.
    Aloïs Godinat: New Works. Installation view, Artists Space, 2007. Photo: Bill Orcutt. [A black cube-shaped speaker sits, tilted upwards, in the middle of a room with wooden floors and white walls. On a wall to the left of the image is a printed image of a fragment of a face with an open mouth, the skin painted in red, blue, and yellow. On a wall to the right are two printed works, one an illustration of a figure in black and white but with a section of the image above the figure's head blocked out with white space, another is a red and blue polka dot pattern in a hand-cut shape. On the wall in the middle of the room is a small white shelf with a small flat object on top of it.]