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When the Cat's Away, Digital Artists Will Play

Media artists team up in a new show to created to depict a nascent twilight zone of abstract visual language.
Exhibition view WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY, ABSTRACTION at Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2016, installation by Vince Mckelvie. All images courtesy Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, except where noted

A new group exhibition generates both creative and art-focused perspectives towards the neverending back and forth between physical and virtual spheres. From curator Tina Sauerländer, who previously brought us PORN TO PIZZA—Domestic Clichés, an investigation into how porn, pets, plants, and pizza took over the internet, WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY, ABSTRACTION continues this dig into how the web is shaping newbehaviors and contemporary senses of well-being.

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 “After the show PORN TO PIZZA—Domestic Clichés that I curated at DAM Gallery Berlin last year and that dealt with how the Internet changed our private comfort zones with porn, selfies or cat videos, this exhibition WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY, ABSTRACTION at Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery in Berlin now explores the merge of the virtual and the physical by the means of abstract visual language,” Sauerländer tells The Creators Project.

Exhibition view WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY, ABSTRACTION at Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2016

The artists roster is comprised of Juliette Bonneviot, Manuel Fernández, Philip Hausmeier, Vince Mckelvie, and Cecilia Salama, each who probes the theme using a mix of mediums and tools related either to the tangible or the intangible worlds, the analog and the digital. “I chose these artists because of their challenging concepts reflecting on the merge of URL and IRL and because of the innovative materiality and appealing haptic appearance of their works in a very wide range of media like traditional painting, digital prints, video animation, plexiglass, silicon, latex, chemical substances, PVC or VR,” says Sauerländer when asked about her specific curatorial choices.

Exhibition view WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY, ABSTRACTION at Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2016, work by Cecilia Salama

Besides seeking the triple-point where visuals meet concepts and processes, the exhibition reveals a hybrid journey that into how aesthetics and materials fuse when approaching digital and physical boundaries. The result is an abstract and conceptual visual testament to how ways of life bend and collapse when confronted with the web.

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The artists have thus built a very specific dialogue that both separates and links the internet and real life, without weakening their symbioses. “With the artists' works it becomes clear that we are not talking about transferring imagery back and forth IRL and URL, but that we create one unified visual language,” the curator concludes. See more works from WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY, ABSTRACTION below:

Exhibition view WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY, ABSTRACTION at Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2016, works by Cecilia Salama. Photo © Peter Maibach

Philip Hausmeier, Mental Physics, 2016, VR (virtual reality) Experience - artwork in the exhibition WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY, ABSTRACTION at Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2016

Exhibition view WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY, ABSTRACTION at Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2016, with works by (left to right): Juliette Bonneviot, Cecilia Salama, Manuel Fernández, Cecilia Salama

Exhibition view WHEN THE CAT’S AWAY, ABSTRACTION at Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin, Germany, 2016, with works by (left to right): Juliette Bonneviot, Cecilia Salama, Manuel Fernández

You can visit the show until June 4, 2016 at the Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery in Berlin. Click here to learn more.

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