Remaining honest to the commitment to video art Gallery Magda Danysz presents from September 8 to October 6, 2012 an exhibition devoted entirely to video. Focusing on the three artists Erwin OLAF, Samuel ROUSSEAU and Yang YONGLIANG, gallery Magda Danysz presents an exhibition where only the screens occupy the gallery walls. The gallery will be darkened to invite the viewer to discover the digital world.
Erwin OLAF, Samuel ROUSSEAU and Yang YONGLIANG, each build a very personal universe. The videos of Erwin OLAF or Yang YONGLIANG focus on specific screens while those of Samuel ROUSSEAU focus on real space installation. One constructs a detailed scene when the other creates urban architecture. Through the diverse works of these three artists, the exhibition raises the question of the presentation and architectural construction of video art.
In the works of Erwin OLAF, the characters exist in a setting where every detail is studied. Erwin OLAF carefully choses the objects, the colour palette, the garments of his models, the music and rhythm to his stories and yet the narrative remains silent. The couch or the staircase becomes the key features of meticulous work whereby the characters seem to become an equal part of the scene.
Samuel ROUSSEAU was appointed in 2011 from the selection of the ADIAF for the Marcel Duchamp Prize. His videos are off the screen to fit into the banal objects of everyday life, including car tires, washing machines and medicine and then within these structures his videos exist. Various scenes fit into each of these different forms. He thus works on the border between video, sculpture and installation.
Finally Yang YONGLIANG focuses his work on the relationship between tradition and modernity. In his videos he builds cities in which nature is united with modern architecture. Yang YONGLIANG combines a kind of dream where mountains and waterfalls typical of ancient calligraphy coexist with an ultra-modern urbanism, agitated by crowded highways of cars. His videos build multiple evanescent landscapes which aesthetic seems close to painting.