Christina Mitrentse, "Add to my library vol II" exhibition

The Artwork space presents from August 29th until September 25th, ‘Add To My Library Vol.II’ a large-scale solo exhibition of works by established multi-faceted artist Christina Mitrentse.

The show consists of five interconnected parts produced during the last two years: A series of large scale graphite and colour pencil drawings created on paper by an innovative methodology that depicts books as the building-blocks of idiosyncratic institutions; ‘STONEHENGE’, ‘WWW’, ‘NEW TATE’, ‘EMBLEM’, ‘RUINS I’, will fill the main walls of the gallery. An ‘ON-LINE DATA FLOW’ of favorite books titles/authors, selected by invited international contributors from the art world. ‘METABOOK’, a plinth-mounted silk-screened book sculpture; ‘10 FLAGS/EMBLEMS’, silk-screens extracted from METABOOK, that form a wall-based installation and a spoken word performance by guest artist Douglas Park who will embody the Library’s body of knowledge as a living encyclopaedia. The man who became a book!

‘Add To My Library Vol. II’ is dialectically related to the book practices of John Latham, and writer Walter Benjamin among others, invites the public to re-interpret their own belief systems, and re-contextualise bibliographic experience. In a globalised environment increasingly dominated by the digital book market, e-learning and hypertext, Mitrentse’s project alludes to a Meta-Library designed to provoke changes in the function of the material book, and the user’s relationship with it, while de-institutionalising it in the process. Being a critique on the book as sacred object and site of subjectivity the ensuing images are humorous, sardonic and nostalgic at the same time.

Art writer Michael Hampton says in his critic message for 'Add to my library vol. II' exhibition, "Mitrentse begins and ends with neo-Gothic images of a ruin. A highly charged species of conceptual drawing that avoids visceral gesture, being primarily intended to make the viewer ponder their ‘text’ of civilisation in crisis" and he concludes with "So, for Mitrentse as new data from contributors is gathered, the exercise of adding to and activating her library intensifies, the paper surface a locus not only to remix the ‘catalogue’ but also alter the pictorial space of the library. In this way monumentality is micromanaged. Each drawing might function as domestic ‘shelving’, the traces of an attempted re-drawing of the cultural institution, Tate Modern’s smokeless chimney become a ziggurat of ISBNs."

We would say that is an exhibition not to be missed...

You can access the BIBLIOGRAPHIC DATA FLOW ON AN MAGAZINE and read an interview the artist gave in INTERARTIVE on the occasion of the opening of her new solo exhibition.

ARTWORKSPACE- THE HEMPLE, 31- 35 Craven Hill Gardens, London W2 3EA. PRIVATE VIEW 7TH SEPTEMBER 2011 6-9pm.