Dream Art Woman Kiri-Una Brito Meumann Walks Us Through Gucci’s ‘The Artist Is Present’

Express yourself.

Text by Hayley Morgan

Last week in Shanghai, Gucci opened their incredible multi-room exhibition ‘The Artist Is Present’. Curated by master mind Maurizio Cattelan, each room is a brain bender and invites a critical eye to be cast on the criticism surrounding copying, appropriation and inspiration — either pulling apart the three or pushing them together, it isn’t so clear. And that’s sometimes the point.

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Inside rooms of the exhibit #TheArtistIsPresent curated by @mauriziocattelan. | 1. @philippeparreno’s ‘Speech Bubbles’ on the ceiling, illuminate a room featuring an installation by @josedavila; an artwork by founding figure of American Conceptual art, #LawrenceWeiner, designed on the floor; and marble surf boards by collective art practice #ReenaSpaulings—that are precise copies of boards from the Mollusk Surf Shop in Brooklyn, New York. | 2 and 3. Mika Rottenberg’s installation ‘NoNoseKnows’ (2017) focuses on production, in the video, an assembly line of women making cultured pearls - pearls, an industry that China now dominates and what she saw in the immense pearl-making facilities of Zhuji, south of Shanghai. | 4. Artist #KapwaniKiwanga combines two colors, inviting the viewer to think about social implications. Baker-Miller Pink had the purported effect of reducing aggressive behaviour in test subjects by lowering their heart rate, pulse, and respiration. Fluorescent blue lights that recently have been installed in public spaces with the goal of reducing the visibility of veins, thereby discouraging intravenous drug use. #AlessandroMichele. The exhibit is on at the Yuz Museum, Shanghai until December 16, discover more through link in bio.

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1. ‘Power Toilets’ by @superflexstudio is the exact copy of the Ministers’ restroom in the Justus Lipsius Building, Council of the European Union in Brussels. | 2. #NinaBeier, #MattJohnson, #NevineMahmoud, @jonrafman and @hannahslevy’s works appear in a room of #TheArtistIsPresent. At the exhibit curated by @mauriziocattelan, the culture of copying has nothing to do with revolutionary discontinuities and doesn’t identify a then-time and a now-time, but rather with a today that is nothing but yesterday reprocessed, changed and transformed. | 3. A mixed media work by @wimdelvoye ‘Cloaca N° 5’ bringing together extremes of highbrow and lowbrow culture, replicating the human digestive system. Part of the exhibit #TheArtistIsPresent at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai until December 16, curated by @mauriziocattelan and powered by Gucci. #AlessandroMichele. Read more through link in bio.

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We were lucky enough to walk through the exhibition with one of our favourite artists, Kiri-Una Brito Meumann. As we tripped through the work of more than thirty artists, we discussed the importance of originality and intention, and really got stuck into the foundations of concept.

‘The Artist Is Present’ is open until December 16 at Yuz Museum in Shanghai.

Video and music: Rohan Bell-Towers
Camera and interview: Hayley Morgan

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