Catalogue > At random

Rick Buckley

In the Garden

Vidéo expérimentale | hdv | couleur | 7:50 | Royaume-Uni, Allemagne | 2012

In the garden 2012, DV HD, 07:57:00 The enclosed space of the Neue Nationalgalerie?s Sculpture garden is one that is off limits to us, not only physically but also mentally. This sombre terrain is reminiscent of a relic, one that had had experienced better days, though the absent viewer adds to its enchantment. Within its enclosure of grey granite stone, the sculptures that are found there seem to emit an ontological indifference to their habitat, like that of a cadaver is to its tomb. How ironic that Mies van der Rohe concluded in 1943, ?the first problem is to establish the museum as a centre for the enjoyment of art, not the interment of art?. We know from archival documents, that the conception of the building had certainly not an easy birth. A structure born out of a modernist spirit, of which had been ravaged by totalitarian politics of the past, no doubt such troubled history lends certain pathos to the Sculpture garden?s atmosphere. Within the oasis of calm, the sculptures seem to have an air of aloofness about them, some reflecting, whilst others absorbing their surroundings. They almost seem to gesture at an independence from the viewer?s gaze, a possible asset that seems to give the works added vigour. As Henry Bergson?s states in his major work ?Matter and Memory?, ?the same images can enter at the same time into two distinct systems, one belonging to science, wherein each image, related only to itself, possesses an absolute value; and the other, the world of consciousness, wherein all the images depend on a central image, our body, the variations of which they follow?. In this case the sculptures as images, seem to belong to that of the former, the system of science. ?In the garden?, takes the viewpoint of a floating spirit, with its drunken gait, roaming through the Sculpture garden with a gaze like that of a zombie, and in a manner of uncontrollable restlessness. This phantom is unable to truly reflect the nature of its surroundings. The unfolding images within the film reveal a faux romanticism, which is evident in the mocking artificial reflection and mimicry of the full moon in the sky above and its ambient sound borrowed from other sources. The spluttering fountain drinking from the pool that is its source, negates its present moment in time by striving to return to its place of origin. All of which suggests a phantasmagorical realm, wherein the enchanted garden has become the abode of the spectral.

Rick Buckley Born Southend-on Sea,Essex, UK 1990-95 Studied Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Germany. Studied under Nam June Paik/Nan Hoover 1996 Videokunst Preis Bremen 1997 Kunstfonds Stipendium Bonn 2000 Artist Residency, Bemis Centre for Contemporary Arts, Nebraska, USA 2003 Arts Council England Artist Grant 2013 CCA Andraxt, Mallorca, Spain, Artist Residency Exhibitions (selected) 2014 Blackbile 84, Focal Point Gallery, UK (solo) 2013 Mass. En Masse. Mass Medium, CGP, London The Legend of the shelves, Autocenter, Berlin Caution: things may appear different than they are, AEG Halle, Nürnberg 2012 The Hard & The Fast, Book Launch, Motto, Berlin Chains, Horse, Berlin Jack?s Union, Autocenter, Berlin (solo) Thames Delta, Focal Point Gallery, Southend on Sea, Essex, UK Ins Blickfeld gerückt, Galerie de Multiples, Paris 2011 The Black Goddess, Autocenter, Berlin (Curated by Rick Buckley) Wilhelm Reich / Ayn Rand, Essays & Observations, Berlin Point it at Gran, Nationalmuseum, Berlin 2010 Magic Show, Pump House Gallery, London Hayward Gallery London, UK Touring Exhibition, Ins Blickfeld gerückt, Institut Francais, Berlin Haunted Tate, Essays & Observations, Berlin Blattspezial, publication, Berlin, The Watering Hole, Cussler, Berlin (Solo) The Indistinct Seeing, Infernoesque, Berlin 2009 Magic Show, Hayward Gallery London, UK Touring Exhibition, The Incomplete Man, book launch, Motto, Berlin WANT, Arratia/Beer, Berlin Bank of Eden, curated by A.Hopf & R.Buckley, Whitechapel Berlin The Incomplete Man, SOX Schaufenster, Berlin (Solo) Straylight Cavern, Cell-Project Space, London Freundliches Feuer, PR17, Berlin 2008 Facets of Reason, Union Gallery, London (Solo) King Fisher Tales, Union Gallery, London Group Show, Nationalmuseum, Berlin Free Dimensionality, Silver Shed, NYC 2007 Dark Mirror, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam 2006 Everything Must Go, VTO Gallery, London Cow Shed / Blakean Shack, 7Hours, Haus 19, Humbolt University, Berlin (Solo) 2005 Scotty oder Madeline?, Center, Berlin 2004 Domestic Civil Wars, VTO Gallery, London (Solo) Whipping Wall & Window With Paint, Center, Berlin (Solo) Ideals, Uncertainties & Consequence, Galerie Mirko Mayer, Cologne (Solo) Works on Paper, SOUTHFIRST, Brooklyn, NYC Drawn By Reality / Encapsulated in Life, Wood St Galleries, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 2003 Entranced, VTO Gallery, London 2002 Multitude, Artist Space, NYC Majik, VTO, London Three Dimensional Disaster, Galerie Mirko Mayer, Cologne (Solo) 2001 10 jahre Bremer Videokunst Preis, GAK, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen 2000 Certain Things Are Never Said / Said Things Are Never Certain, Galerie Mirko Mayer, Cologne, (Solo) Works on Paper, Martin Kudlek Galerie, Cologne, 1998 We Love You / We Love You Not, Neues Museum Weserberg, Bremen (Solo) Give & Take Again, Whitechapel Gallery, London, To call unto those who prey & beg, Artothek, Colonge, (Solo)