Verso Reverso exhibition view at Simon Preston, New York 17 April - 29 May 2011
Miopia is comprised of 36 hand-bound books installed as a grid. The cover of each unique book combines to form a large, highly-produced billboard advertisement image. Each book is culled from further discarded billboard material, cut and drawn on, creating a dense and unique work of hyper- collage. This image is broken into infinite combinations of daily interruptions by revealing the contents of variant books according to a daily algorithmic calendar. Made in collaboration with Mariana Lanari.
PRESS RELEASE
The exhibition originates from the artist's interest in the increasingly obsolete paper billboards from her hometown of São Paulo. Using discarded billboard prints as a primary source material, Mein concentrates on its errors, glitches and folds - the break in the mechanical that renders it unique.
In a densely-layered animation, projected onto a single crumpled piece of paper, Mein has recorded an activity practically outlawed by recent visual anti-pollution laws; a laborer ascending and descending a ladder as he pastes sheets to an advertising hoarding. In cutting and splicing thousands of images together, the film re-animates this out-moded practice.
In a series of collages, salvaged billboard sheets are hole-punched and painstakingly collaged by hand, accentuating the faultiness inherent to the material. Efficiency and geometric form become interrupted by the handmade and mechanical error; while accident and imperfection are made implicit.
A group of works on paper combine a minimal repetitive gesture with similar rigor. Tiny loops of ink compress and expand in regimented, structured repetition, echoing both the paper folds and densely populated, formal compositions.
On the back wall, 36 hand-bound books are installed as a grid to comprise Miopia. The cover of each unique book combines to form a large, highly-produced advertisement. This image is broken into infinite combinations of interruptions by revealing the contents of each book, culled from further discarded billboard material, cut and drawn on, creating a dense and unique work of hyper-collage. It is the abstraction of representation, together with a physical handling of images, that is at the core of Mein's practice.
Special thanks to Mariana Lanari, at Lanari Editions, for the collaboration and production of Miopia.