As a prelude to a full-scale solo exhibition of his work slated for spring 2012 at PKM Trinity Gallery, PKM Gallery | Bartleby Bickle & Meursault are pleased to present A Fairy’s Tale, a two-channel video installation by Hernan Bas.
One of the most gifted and celebrated young painters to emerge on the international scene in recent years, Bas has also created a number of significant works using the moving image. Drawing inspiration from such contemporary figures as Joseph Beuys, Matthew Barney and particularly Bas Jan Ader, while also evoking art-historical and literary references from past centuries, Bas’ video and film deploy simple gestures and situations to delve into themes of nostalgia, romanticism, and the absurd.
A Fairy’s Tale was shot in Monet’s garden in Giverny, France, during the artist’s residency there in 2005. In the projection on the left, a paper crown floats aimlessly and begins to sink amidst the famous lily pads, while in the right Bas, wearing the paper crown, climbs into a decaying boat and floats in front of the lush green bridge made iconic by Monet’s painting. Set to a soundtrack of dramatic, crackling violins, the images, by turns absurd, plangent, and haunting, gesture toward the fantastical realms explored in Bas’ paintings, a world often populated by youthful aesthetes and dandies in a lush surrounding overgrown with fanciful flora and fauna fraught with symbolic resonance.
Born in 1978 in Miami, Hernan Bas currently lives and works in Detroit. A major survey spanning a decade was mounted by the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, in 2007, which subsequently travelled to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, in 2009. Bas has exhibited in group exhibitions at significant international venues including “The Collectors,” Nordic Pavilion, 53rd Venice Biennale (curated by Elmgreen & Dragset); 6th Busan Biennale, Korea; Aspen Art Museum, Colorado; Haifa Museum of Art, Israel; Deste Foundation, Athens; Saatchi Gallery, London; and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. In addition to the Rubell Collection, Miami, Hernan Bas’ work is held in numerous prominent collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hirschorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, among others.
The presentation of A Fairy’s Tale is accompanied by a screening of miamiHeights: Hernan Bas (directed by Bill Bilowit and produced by Grela Orihuela), a feature documentary film which offers a behind-the-scenes look at Hernan Bas’ personal and professional journey in his dramatic ascent to artistic prominence.
