Rirkrit Tiravanija: untitled 2023 (the ambrosias of evil)
Rirkrit Tiravanija
untitled 2023 (the ambrosias of evil)
Embossed print on paper
Size: 66 X 43.2 cm
Hand signed and numbered by the artist
Edition of 30 + 3 APs
£880 (incl. VAT)
Rirkrit Tiravanija’s first solo exhibition in London took place at Serpentine in 2005. Tiravanija’s installation featured a full-scale, fully functioning replica of his New York apartment and a broadcasting studio, all available for visitors to use. Along with the replica apartment, a broadcasting studio was also installed within the Serpentine Gallery, from which a serialized radio programme about the artist’s life was transmitted live on a daily basis. Tiravanija’s work, like this installation, crosses the boundaries between sculpture, installation and performance. Acting as a catalyst, Tiravanija created situations in which the divisions between art and life were removed. He often cited ‘lots of people’ as a key element, making reference to the improvisational nature of his work and his desire for it to be used.
Rirkrit Tiravanija is a Thai contemporary artist. Tiravanija attended Ontario College of Art in Toronto (1980–84), the Banff Center School of Fine Arts (1984), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1984–86), and the Whitney Independent Studies Program in New York (1985–86). In the 1990s, Tiravanija began producing works that revolved around his own personal history, he is quoted as saying “My starting point was the search for my identity in foreign places, in places where I am estranged from myself”. Rirkrit Tiravanija pioneered the Relational Aesthetics movement, which in simplified terms places people; their interactions, their environments at the centre of the work as opposed to art objects. His work has in the past taken the form of communal cooking and eating where audiences are invited into an event or environment of Tirivanija’s making, often providing space for smaller personal moments, whilst relating these to wider political concerns. Rirkrit Tiravanija has exhibited at the Serpentine Galleries as well as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, USA as well as the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the National Gallery Singapore and the Venice Biennale to name a few.
This limited edition takes reference from one of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s marble sculptures of the same name, originally shown in Rirkrit Tiravanija: untitled 2020 (once upon a time) (after jasper johns) at Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris 2020. It disrupts and re-appropriates the American flag inserting a phrase over the top of the distorted stars and desaturated stripes. “The Ambrosias of Evil” acts not only as a provocative phrase, but also exercises one’s right to critique. Similarly, this edition emulates the monochrome aesthetic through the process of blind embossing. The print emerges through imprints on the paper, no ink is used in this process, but in its absence, there remains a ghostly presence.
“People forget that it is part of political speech, part of enacting your right to critique. […] So, this idea of deconstructing the flag has been going on since the 1980s, since Ronald Reagan. Or even for longer, since the Vietnam war protests. […] I usually describe my text works as road signs. Like when you drive on a highway and you drive by a big signage and pick up whatever the words are written on it. It’s about whether that gets into your consciousness or not. […] You read it because it stands out, and it does have some effect, whether you agree with it or not.”
(Rirkrit Tiravanija, 2020)
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