An exhibition by Jonathan Monk
curated by Celeste
22 July – 22 September 2024
Celeste is excited to conclude the third season of LAVAPIU with a site-specific work by the British artist Jonathan Monk. Active since the early 1990s, Monk develops his research starting from the renunciation of the myth of originality in artistic creation. His practice is characterized by the recovery and re-signification of some of the seminal works of Minimalism and Conceptual Art from the 1960s and 1970s, with an approach that is always “gentle, ironic, and poetic” (K. Johnson, 2002). Far from any iconoclastic temptations, Monk draws from the conceptual instances—usually considered expressions of self-referential, intellectualistic, and boring art—the epistemological tools to position himself both in the art world and in life. In particular, in works inspired by his personal history, the artist returns a nostalgic and sentimental dimension, while still remaining within precise linguistic structures. For years, Jonathan Monk has been telling us that if it is so difficult to be unique and original, then perhaps it is wiser to give up this idea, or to completely overturn it.
In the work presented at LAVAPIU, titled Washing Louise, Jeff and Peter, Monk once again evokes some old acquaintances. The names in the title of the work refer to the artists Louise Lawler, Jeff Koons, and Peter Halley, key figures in post-war American Neo-Conceptual Art. The window decal created by the artist for Celeste depicts a photograph—or rather a render—of a square shape, repeated several times on a white background and deformed by a centrifugal vortex that alters its shapes. At first glance, the images might recall one of Lawler’s works from the series “adjusted to fit,” in which photographs of contemporary art exhibition installations are deformed and distorted to fit into new contexts. In this case, the works depicted in the “Lawler-manner” are a reflective bunny by Jeff Koons in front of a painting by Peter Halley. According to the title of the work, the centrifugal rotation of a now-sacred piece of American art would be activated by the washing machine drum. And yet, we like to think of another possibility, that it is the same air that Monk had released a few years ago from his “deflated sculptures,” the iconic Koons bunnies that the British artist deflated and collapsed onto themselves, that is now agitating these colorful two-dimensional figures.
The exhibition is part of the third LAVAPIU programme, hosted in the launderette in the Gammarana neighborhood of Teramo, titled The Cure.
Jonathan Monk (1969, Leicester), a long-established conceptual artist, lives and works in Berlin. He began his exhibition career in 1992 in England. Since then, his work has been exhibited worldwide. His works are part of prestigious public collections, such as Tate Britain in London, the Guggenheim Museum and the MoMA in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Pinault Collection, the MART in Rovereto, and many others. In Italy, he is represented by Galleria Massimo Minini (Brescia).
Produced by Sunistema APS. Project realised with the patronage and collaboration of the Municipality of Teramo and with the contribution of the Province of Teramo.