DAVE MIKO


Press Release
15 March – 12 May 2007

Dave Miko (b. 1974) makes paintings in oil on aluminium that investigate problems of subject, object and shifting context. In this exhibition Miko will exhibit a body of individual paintings as well as, for the first time, an Archive, developed to house a series of 8 x 8 inch paintings, whose accentuated form functions both as sculptural object and image bank.

The Archive has a set of drawers that simultaneously operate as frames for the six paintings contained within. The viewer is invited to choose from the drawers which painting to display above the cabinet - with the caveat that only one painting is shown at a time. For Miko the Archive operates as a “guide to navigate things that at first may seem unrelated”. The viewer builds up in his/her mind a memory of the other works in the drawers, and on choosing the work to be installed participates in the continually shifting context that the work as a whole is seen in.

The individual painting Setting shows a monumental white sphere atop an equally monumental black cube, static and focused in a space of hazy, shifting colours: “This shifting may be due to any number of reasons. Perhaps time is passing and we are still focusing on the monument. Or maybe our thoughts are passing as we are considering the monument. Or it is possible that the whole scene is a memory and all that we are holding onto are the formal absolutes of the white sphere and black block.”

In Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich a Giacometti-like form of red line stands astride two divorced plinths, in front of a stack of varying horizons that form repeated bands of water and sky. The singular is therefore repeated potentially endlessly in different spaces and/or times, while straddling two pedestals that reinforce the ‘object-ness’ and self-referentiality of the ‘sculpture’, while reminding us of its “shaky mobility as a thing in time, space and social context.” Similarly, in the small painting Bartender only the man is focused, lost among a hazy and potentially shifting series of repeated giant boxes.

The painting Obstacle is finally at the most extreme end of the relation between object and context. The object fills the image almost entirely, its volume achieved only by the shifting movement of the eye activating the reflection of light off the surface brushstrokes.

Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich, Ostrich. 2007, Oil on aluminum, 56 x 51 cm, (A00178)

'Bartender' 2007, oil on aluminium, 38 x 35.5 cm (A00179)

'Setting' 2007, Oil on aluminum, 101.5 x 111.8 cm, (A00184)

Installation view, 2007, ARQUEBUSE, Geneva

Installation view, 2007, ARQUEBUSE, Geneva

Installation view, 2007, ARQUEBUSE, Geneva