DAVID DIMICHELE (Los Angeles, U.S.A.)
‘LIGHT AND SPACE’

Light and Space will be Los Angeles-based artist David DiMichele’s first solo exhibition with the Frank Taal Gallery, featuring both new works from that series, as well as works from Dimichele’e earlier Pseudodocumentation series.
The Light and Space photographs represent a new phase in the artist’s oeuvre, which focuses on works that involve the use of light, transparent materials, the gallery space itself, and the legacy of installation art, particularly that of the Southern California Light and Space movement that began in the late 1960s. That movement, considered by many art historians to be the most original movement to originate in Los Angeles, has long informed DiMichele’s work, from his earlier actual installations to the photographic works based upon models of fantasy installation art that he has been creating since 2001. DiMichele’s art is uniquely about installation art and uses the well-known format of the “installation shot” photograph that so dominates the history of contemporary art. To create the Light and Space works, Dimichele first builds miniature gallery interiors in his studio in g scale (1:24) and constructs sculptural forms out of glass, plexiglass, and other transparent materials that interact with the interior space itself, often penetrating the walls, floor, and ceiling. In this way, DiMichele can explore issues and ideas regarding sculpture and installation without having to deal with the logistics and
expense of making an actual full-scale installation by employing the use of dioramas
and preserving the works through photography. The works straddle a fine line between reality and fiction, abstraction and representation, sculpture, and photography. Based in the tradition of installation documentary photography, the pieces turn that genre inside out, creating images that seem to be documents of past installation projects but are in fact intended to function and be perceived as works of art.



ALBAN KARSTEN (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
‘HOW LONG HAS THAT BEEN A PROBLEM?’

Alban Karsten is a conceptual artist who creates performances and sculptures out of a strong curiosity about “the other”. He regularly invites professionals from different fields – such as a social psychologist, blacksmiths and a hypnotherapist – to collaborate with him on his projects. In these collaborations, he tries to integrate their methods and

expertise into his work, and thereby give them a major role in the outcome of the work. Through his performances and sculptures, Alban explores what it takes to be an expert, and what authorship and singularity mean when part of the direction is handed over. 
Prior to How long has that been a problem? Alban visited a psychic, which led to a
rather unusual collaboration. It was the prelude for an exhibition full of questions,
lamentations and confessions about (missed) opportunities. Also on show are a series of sculptures and wall pieces where Alban experiments with centuries-old obsolete crafts. By deliberately misinterpreting these techniques, a new visual dialect emerges: a stylized ode to awkwardness, ambiguity and misunderstanding.