Harmony Korine & Isa Genzken in London

9 May – 17 July 2024
​Opening Reception: 9 May, 6 – 8 pm

Harmony Korine. AGGRESSIVE DR1FTER PART II

Over the last thirty years, American artist and filmmaker Harmony Korine has cultivated a multidisciplinary practice built upon tireless experimentation. A second chapter to Korine’s 2023 exhibition, ‘AGGRESSIVE DR1FTER’, at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, this exhibition in London features a series of paintings drawn from his newly released film ‘Aggro Dr1ft’, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2023 and was notably shot using infrared cameras. The exhibition’s acid-hued oils display an unprecedented fusion of Korine’s painting and filmic practices. These hallucinatory works, like his films, blur the boundaries between ‘high’ and ‘low’ in ways that simultaneously attract and repel viewers with their hypnotic, otherworldly atmosphere.

Isa Genzken. Wasserspeier and Angels

On view is a revival of Isa Genzken’s expansive installation ‘Wasserspeier and Angels’ (2004), marking 20 years since it was displayed in the artist’s first major solo exhibition in London. Originally responding to Hauser & Wirth’s former historic space in Piccadilly in 2004, the re-presentation of Genzken’s complex assemblage in the city brings her work into a contemporary context, confronting socio-political themes that are still relevant today. This moment follows on from the acclaimed exhibition ‘Isa Genzken: 75/75’ at Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 2023, celebrating the artist’s 75th birthday with a display of 75 sculptures from her oeuvre from the 1970s to the present.

The installation’s starting point came from the artist’s fascination with the ‘wasserspeier’ (gargoyles) on Cologne Cathedral, encountering their restoration in the building’s masonry shop. Having tried to convince the cathedral’s master builder to let her take the carvings to London, the artist instead created her own gargoyles for the exhibition in 2004, setting them in opposition with winged, angelic figures. Incorporating materials sourced for purpose—from fabrics, household items and books to aluminium panels, electric cables and industrial lights—this multifaceted installation contains layered references and takes on new meaning in today’s landscape.

The first presentation of this work not only marked Genzken’s inaugural show with the gallery but also captured a specific moment in time. Working in Berlin and in New York at the turn of the century, the artist witnessed the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent changing landscape of the city, as well as the collapse of the World Trade Center in New York City. Genzken explores the relationships between different media and social, political and urban spaces, with references to everyday lived experience intruding on her formal experiments.

^{Caption and courtesy:
​​
​Harmony Korine
​Drift XI
​2023
​Oil on canvas
​156.2 x 182.9 x 3.8 cm / 61 1/2 x 72 x 1 1/2 in
​©Harmony Korine
​Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
​Photo: Sarah Muehlbauer}

^{Isa Genzken ​
​Wasserspeier and Angels ​
​2004 ​
​Mixed media installation on 42 aluminium panels; 18 parts ​
​Dimensions variable ​
​Installation view, Isa Genzken, ‘Wasserspeier and Angels’ (2004) at Art Basel Unlimited, Basel, Switzerland, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography Zürich}

^{Isa Genzken ​
​Wasserspeier and Angels ​
​2004 ​
​Mixed media installation on 42 aluminium panels; 18 parts ​
​Dimensions variable ​
​Installation view, ‘Isa Genzken. Wasserspeier and Angels’ at Hauser & Wirth Piccadilly, London, UK, 2004. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth}