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'BASTARDS (NEVERLAND)' by Julian-Jakob Kneer at Shore, Vienna


BASTARDS (NEVERLAND) is the second solo exhibition by Julian-Jakob Kneer at Shore gallery. The artist is premiering a new series of wall works, drawing on themes established throughout his practice. 

Seven monochrome printed silver mirrors are framed in galvanized aluminum and hung in a simple grid. Each one features a layered collage of three seemingly random movie titles.

Under the polished surfaces, BASTARDS (NEVERLAND) thus proves a murky basin of pop culture references that is almost too laden with association to wade through at ease.
Through crossbreeding ready-made opposing narratives, Kneer’s BASTARDS riff on themes of morality and the narcissistic self. In the reflection of the shimmering muck, stars are born, identities are lost, witches are burned by barbies, and ecstasy seamlessly blends into terror. 

Sifting contemporary zeitgeist artifacts through the lens of ancient lore, and inexorably returning to the foundational principles of human psychology, Kneer’s work digs up the foundations of supposed socio-cultural binaries and confronts our conceptions of right / wrong, beautiful / ugly, low / high culture. The artist breaks them down into their constituent parts, and releases them for recasting in a value-free space.

This exhibition marks the first chapter of BASTARDS, with upcoming presentations in Berlin, New York, Zurich and Milan.

– Nele Ruckelshausen

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. No artist desires to prove anything. [...] No artist has ethical sympathies. [...] The morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. [...]
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.
We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. 
All art is quite useless.

– Oscar Wilde, PREFACE TO THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

No artist tolerates reality.

– Britney Spears quoting NIETZSCHE

I’ve forgotten how to fly. Yes, well... one does.
You know that place between sleep and awake? That place where you still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you…That’s where I’ll be waiting.
Never is an awfully long time.

– HOOK, 1991

3.2.23 — 4.3.23

Shore

'ABSINTHE', Group Show Curated by PLAGUE at Smena, Kazan

'Pupila' by Elizabeth Burmann Littin at Two seven two gallery, Toronto

'Auxiliary Lights' by Kai Philip Trausenegger at Bildraum 07, Vienna

'Inferno' by Matthew Tully Dugan at Lomex, New York

'Зamok', Off-Site Group Project at dentistry Dr. Blumkin, Moscow

'Dog, No Leash', Group Show at Spazio Orr, Brescia

'Syllables in Heart' by Thomas Bremerstent at Salgshallen, Oslo

'Out-of-place artifact', Off-Site Project by Artem Briukhov in Birsk Fortress, Bi

'Gardening' by Daniel Drabek at Toni Areal, Zurich

'HALF TRUTHS', Group Show at Hackney Road, E2 8ET, London

'Unknown Unknowns' by Christian Roncea at West End, The Hague

'Thinking About Things That Are Thinking' by Nicolás Lamas at Meessen De Clercq,

‘Funny / Sad’, Group Show by Ian Bruner, Don Elektro & Halo, curated by Rhizome P

'Don’t Die', Group Show at No Gallery, New York

'Almost Begin' by Bronson Smillie at Afternoon Projects, Vancouver

'I'll Carry Your Heart's Gray Wing with a Trembling Hand to My Old Age', Group Sh

'hapy like a fly' by Clément Courgeon at Colette Mariana, Barcelona

'Fear of the Dark' by Jack Evans at Soup, London

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