Curated by Aimee Lin
Duration: 3rd April to 17th May 2015
Private View: 17th May, 4pm to 6pm
Magician Space is very pleased to present ‘Biogenic Mineral’, the first exhibition in China by Berlin-based artist Timur Si-Qin. Informed by the qualities and form of rock minerals, the exhibition presents ‘Truth by Peace’, a brand released by the artist for this exhibition under the banner of which includes an installation of sculpture and photography. Geological transformation is used as a metaphor for a consumer culture heated, pressurized and compressed in order to generate new patterns and forms.
Timur Si-Qin’s work revolves between the transformation of material and matter. This body of recent work explores more closely inspiration taken from China, a place he shares a blood relationship with, envisioning the country as an immense super processor – one that incessesantly draws raw material from all over the word transforming them into other material forms.
In previous projects, the artist has regularly adopted contemporary modes of commercial operations such as branding, commercial photography, and advertising. ‘PEACE’ is a brand the artist initiated in recent years for his exhibitions, the brand image incorporates the PEACE slogan with a white and grey Taoist Taiji symbol. For his solo exhibition in Beijing, Si-Qin mimics New York fashion brand Hood by Air’s sub-brand HBA, creating his own TBP (Truth by Peace) evoking K-Pop culture, as well as the production of large-scale commercial images. For Si-Qin, the adaptation of the brand undergoes a transformation similar to metamorphic processes found in the natural world – they all derive from matter shifting through phase transitions from one attractor to another.
Constituting the major component of the TBP brand in material form, the main hall features a set of rock-like sculptures fabricated in a factory located in Heiqiao Village, Beijing. Similar to how marble is the metamorphic version of limestone composed of ancient sea life, in the broader sense, minerals can also be regarded as a product of geological evolution – a movement undergoing stages of heat and pressure through prolonged periods of time in order to yield a new form. The artist regards transformation within culture (with brands as a concrete example) as similarly a result of these complex movements compressed together by metamorphic processes. With this sculpture installation in the main hall, the artist has also fabricated octagonal structures lined with an LED light system – combining traditional and contemporary structures, these elements together play the role of ‘visual attractors’, directing the movement of culture or a ‘phase transition’.
Timur Si-Qin (b. 1984) is an artist of German and Mongolian-Chinese decent who grew up in Berlin, Beijing and in a Native Indian community in the American Southwest. Si-Qin lives and works in Berlin, and a leading figure in a new generation of artists associated with the contemporary philosophical movements of ‘New Materialism’ and ‘Speculative Realism’. Growing up in a multi-cultural environment has helped informed Si-Qin’s unique sensitivity to materials, in addition to his interest contemporary discourses in philosophy and science, which together influence his artistic practice. He has shown internationally at Bonner Kunstverein, CCS Bard New York, Museum Fridericianum Kassel, the Taipei Biennial, and last year he participated in the Art Post-Internet group exhibition curated by Karen Archey and Robin Peckham at the UCCA in Beijing.
This exhibition has been generously supported by Goethe-Institut China.
