ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Galerie Ron Mandos is proud to present the exhibition The White Exploit by Muntean / Rosenblum. The artists mix references to art history and popular culture. By playing with visual codes from the past and the present, they scrutinise the power of images and how these constitute an overwhelming collective memory. The exhibition will comprise the duo’s distinctive large-scale paintings as well as paintings and drawings on a smaller scale. The White Exploit is derived from their eponymous new video installation (2018), which will also be shown.
Muntean/Rosenblum’s work mostly depicts groups of apparently lethargic or melancholic young people in idle situations, which are either ordinary and everyday or mysterious and ambiguous. The often dreamy scenes take place in rooms, public spaces or landscapes as if part of a film, presenting unresolved situations in the making. The characters seem to adopt postures copied from fashion magazines, or from paintings originating from the renaissance to the nineteenth century. Their work is often accompanied by captions or texts not directly relating to the depicted scene, thereby adding another layer of complexity.
Galerie Ron Mandos will show, among others, a selection of their newest series, with which the artists introduce paintings inspired by videos gone viral on YouTube. They explore the profound meaning of the online platform to today’s visual culture, as a space of contemporary iconography. In general, young people are omnipresent in Muntean/Rosenblum’s work, resulting from the artists’ desire to faithfully capture their constant and overwhelming appearance in mass media and social media. These are key areas in their ongoing theoretical and aesthetic reflection.
With their work Muntean/Rosenblum powerfully discuss various issues in a rational and balanced manner. However, the artists couple their visual contemplations to an identification with the present that can be chaotic and painful, in order to blur the boundaries between reason and imagination.
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