What is anachronistic about the ghost story is its peculiarly contingent and constitutive dependence of physical place and, in particular, on the material house as such. –Frederic Jameson, “Historicism in The Shining“
SI is pleased to present Haunted Haus – a spectral space where bodies, images, sounds and smells fester and mingle. The group exhibition features works by 20 artists that reflect on the spirits we project into the world, the forces that insist without existing, and the anachronism and experience of haunting.
Haunted Haus draws on the concept of hauntology [1], which has inspired various writers and thinkers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including Mark Fisher, who described it in his 2012 essay “What is Hauntology?” as a haunting by lost futures that failed to happen. Haunting, Fisher writes, “happens when a place is stained by time, or when a particular place becomes the site for an encounter with broken time.” Such residues are explored in this exhibition, as they cling to and animate spaces and things.
Unfolding and expanding over the show’s duration, Haunted Haus will be installed across three floors of SI. One gallery is recast as an eerie domestic setting beset with flamboyant demons, paintings that laugh, and a melody that emanates from the abyss. Another explores the architecture of houses themselves, the stages on which the spectacles of our memories play, sticky with the remnants of history.
Haunted Haus is made possible in part through the SI Annual Exhibition Fund. SI wishes to thank the lenders to the exhibition: Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London; Bel Ami, Los Angeles; Chapter NY; Gaudel de Stampa, Paris; Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels; Anne and Arthur Goldstein; International Flavors and Fragrances; and Galerie Philippzollinger. SI additionally wishes to thank Margaux Bosquillon de Jenlis, Penelope Bigelow, Jocelyn Wolff and Sandrine Djerouet.
1 Hauntology, a word with phonic similarity to “ontology,” is a term first coined by Jacques Derrida in lectures given at the symposium “Whither Marxism” at UC Riverside in 1993, later published as Spectres of Marx (1993). There, he discusses the particular ways that the “spectre of Communism,” mentioned by Marx in the opening lines of The Communist Manifesto, would continue to haunt the world after “the End of History” (Francis Fukuyama, 1992). The concept found new resonance in the 2010s, particularly through the work of the British writer and critic Mark Fisher (1968-2017).
Image: Alfatih, still from Bootleg Oracle, 2020.
All exhibition documentation by Charlie Rubin.
Gabriele Garavaglia, Intruder, 2020, selection. MP3 file, built-in speakers, 81 min 52 sec. Courtesy of the artist. Installed in SI’s elevator and second floor gallery.
Win McCarthy, Bloodsucker Country Pt. 1 & 2, 2019. Tempered glass, silicone, tape, foamcore, cast glass, laser prints, inkjet prints, blanket, water bottles 81 1/2 x 193 x 96 1/2 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Win McCarthy, Bloodsucker Country Pt. 1 & 2, 2019.
Win McCarthy, Bloodsucker Country Pt. 1 & 2, 2019.
Win McCarthy, Bloodsucker Country Pt. 1 & 2, 2019, detail.
Haunted Haus, installation view
Haroon Gunn-Salie, Zonnebloem renamed, 2013-2020. Site-specific intervention, photograph. 3 ft 11 in x 2 ft 7 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Win McCarthy, Bloodsucker Country Pt. 1 & 2, 2019, detail.
Miriam Cahn, Denkende Frau, 1999. Oil on canvas. 15 1/3 x 10 2/3 in. Courtesy of Anne and Arthur Goldstein.
Miriam Cahn, Denkende Frau, 1999, detail.
Victoria Colmegna, Mod, 2020. Dye-sublimation printed carpet. 48 x 192 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Victoria Colmegna, Mod, 2020.
Haunted Haus, installation view
Andro Wekua, Yet to be titled (the house), 2012. Acrylic plaster, wood, steel, gypsum fiber board and acrylic paint. 13 1/2 x 17 1/4 x 16 1/4 in. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.
Andro Wekua, Yet to be titled (the house), 2012.
Andro Wekua, Yet to be titled (the house), 2012, detail.
Cassidy Toner, In the studio 1 (After Johann Rudolf Feyerabend's Basler Totentanz, 1806), 2019. 24 ½ x 17 in. Material solvent transfer and watercolor on one-way reflective window film Courtesy of the artist and GALERIE PHILIPPZOLLINGER.
Haunted Haus, installation view
Melanie Akeret, Untitled, 2020. Print on canvas. 25 ¼ x 28 ½ in. Courtesy of the artist.
Alfatih, Bootleg Oracle, 2020. Video, 3 min 26 sec. Courtesy of the artist.
Alfatih, Bootleg Oracle, 2020, still.
Alfatih, Bootleg Oracle, 2020, still.
James Bantone, Family Values, 2020. Tape, neoprene, polyester, leather, silicone, frame, print on paper, steel, glass, boots and gloves in collaboration with Jazil Santschi I S E. Courtesy of the artist.
James Bantone, Family Values, 2020, detail.
Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, Mouthless, Part I, 2020, still. Video, 44 min. Cinematography: Fritz Schiffers; Readers: Juno Moritz, Julia Moritz, Azur Sabic, Amadeus Vogelsang
Styling: Erik Raynal; Make-up: Juliette Ruetz
Courtesy of the artists.
Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, Mouthless, Part I, 2020, still.
Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, A Large Piece of Turf 02:60, 2020. Material Industrial aroma diffuser, fragrance produced by International Flavors and Fragrances Inc. 12 ½ x 17 x 7 7/8 in. Courtesy of Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London.
From left: Gaia Vincensini, Stuck, 2020. Pen on paper. 11 3/5 x 16 ½ in. Gaia Vincensini, The bliss they now knew, 2020. Indian ink on paper. 11 3/5 x 16 ½ in. Courtesy of the artist and Gaudel de Stampa, Paris
Gaia Vincensini, Contre-sens, 2019. Acrylic, fabric, carabiners, chain. Courtesy of the artist and Gaudel de Stampa, Paris
Gaia Vincensini, Contre-sens, 2019, detail.
On wall: Maïté Chénière, In Between the Vibrant Bodies Rises the Ghost Architecture, the Nexus of the Dancefloor, 2020, still. On right: Jesse Darling, Cut Curtain, 2017. PVC. 137 ¾ x 86 5/8 in
Courtesy of the artist and Chapter NY.
Maïté Chénière, In Between the Vibrant Bodies Rises the Ghost Architecture, the Nexus of the Dancefloor, 2020, still. Video and sound, 27 min. Courtesy of the artist.
Maïté Chénière, In Between the Vibrant Bodies Rises the Ghost Architecture, the Nexus of the Dancefloor, 2020, still.
Jesse Darling, Cut Curtain, 2017, detail.
Haunted Haus, installation view
Alfatih, Untitled, 2020. Resin, silicon, worn-out boots. 14 ½ × 15 ¾ × 7 7/8 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Haunted Haus, installation view
Alan Schmalz, Liquid Bodies (Who are you?), 2020. Watercolor, oil, ink and Letraset on paper mounted on aluminum. 11 x 15 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Alan Schmalz, News, 2020. Watercolor, oil, ink and Letraset on paper mounted on aluminum. 11 x 15 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Alan Schmalz, Emotional gap (8888), 2020. Watercolor, oil, ink and Letraset on paper mounted on aluminum. 11 x 15 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Claire Van Lubeek, Ulcer, 2018, detail. Mixed media. 12 ½ x 11 x 43 1/3 in. Courtesy of the artist.
Claire van Lubeek, Rise of the Sanguines, 2018, detail. Mixed media 8 7/8 x 14 1/8 x 46 7/8 in. Courtesy of the artist.
From left: Olivia Erlanger, Mr. Held's Class, 2020; Claire Van Lubeek, Ulcer, 2018; Claire van Lubeek, Rise of the Sanguines, 2018. On monitor: Milena Langer, Mess, 2020.
Milena Langer, Mess, 2020, still. Video, 11 min
Courtesy of the artist.
Milena Langer, Mess, 2020, still.
Haunted Haus, installation view
Olivia Erlanger, Mr. Held's Class, 2020. Plexiglass, architectural model, urethane resin, dibond, lichen, charcoal, wood, acrylic paint, artificial snow #15. 45 x 30 x 30 in. Courtesy of Bel Ami, Los Angeles.
Ivan Mitrovic, Ted Kaczynski‘s House, 2017. Oil on canvas. 11 7/8 x 9 7/8 in. Courtesy of the artist.
