First solo exhibition by Troika in North America opens at Kohn Gallery
Kohn Gallery presents Cartography of Control, the first solo exhibition by Troika in North America. This new exhibition brings together both existing and new works including drawings, installation and sculpture.
This exhibition takes its premise from a society that has become increasingly governed by rational thinking and scientific methodology. Cartography of Control questions a purely mathematical description of our world and suggests that just as different maps can give different accounts of the same territory, so can different forms of knowledge reflect a more truthful image about the material world.
As Troika experiments with new ideas and processes, the artists continue to work across media including light, water and electricity. While the mark making involved in the works is at once deliberate and spontaneous, calculated and random, ‘Cartography of Control’ explores ideas around man made structures, control, repetitive actions and systems and how these coincide, conflict, or unite with the unpredictable, the unknowable, and irrational.
In ‘Testing Time’ (2014) a stream of water is brought to a halt, and time is visibly broken into distinct instances. Set in front of a LED light, water is dropped and appears suspended, or unnaturally slowed down in front of the light. ‘Sum of all Possibilities’ (2014) is a suspended sculpture that is characterized by an apparent infinite process of metamorphosis which, in reality, is a 12 minute loop defined by mathematical relationships and a precise mechanism that allows an unlimited number of combinations. ‘Cartography of control’ (2014) is a series of drawings that present the marks left on paper by the attempted manipulation of a powerful electric charge, dominated by the tension between control over what is inherently uncontrollable. ‘Calculating the Universe’ (2014) is a series of works that consider the relationship between rules and the concepts of randomness and chaos. These works are constructed from thousands of dice by following simple repetitive rules from which random patterns emerge.
Eva Rucki (b. 1976, Germany), Conny Freyer (b. 1976, Germany) and Sebastien Noel (b. 1977, France) have worked together as an artist trio since 2003.
With a particular interest in perception and the spatial experience, their collective multimedia works challenge the experience of seeing and knowing. They manipulate our perception of the world and ask the question why we know what we know, and whether this knowledge is certain.
Troika’s work has been shown in numerous exhibitions at institutions such as: the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany (2013), the Victoria & Albert Museum London (2009), The Art Institute of Chicago (2009), the MoMA New York (2008), Tate Britain (2007), and their work is represented in the permanent collections of the Israel Museum Jerusalem, British Council, The Art Institute of Chicago, Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museum of Modern Art New York. In 2014 Troika was selected to present their work ‘Dark Matter’ at Unlimited, Art Basel. Upcoming, current and past solo exhibitions include ‘Limits of a known territory’, a solo exhibition at NC Arte, Bogota, Colombia (April - June 2015), ‘Persistent Illusions’, a solo show at the Daelim Museum, Seoul, Korea (10 April 2014 – 12 Oct 2014), ‘The far Side of Reason’, OMR, Mexico City, Mexico (April – June 2013).
Eva Rucki, Conny Freyer and Sebastien Noel live and work in London.