VIDYA GASTALDON / AERNOUT MIK

The artist embroiders, knits, weaves, sews and creates miniature worlds from textile materials. With these objects, some of which can be identified as stones, mushrooms or plants, she evokes a moment of remembrance. For example, Baba le Shaman (2002) – a good-natured monster, somewhere between a ghost train figure and an oversized toy – refers to a longing for the authentic and the human. The fetishistic quality of handmade objects leads directly to mysticism and spirituality in Vidya Gastaldon’s work, and it is her intention to create objects imbued with positive energy. ‘Positive thinking’, that life-affirming, optimistic aura, is inherent in all her works.

The work *Apparat-Dolly-Rocker* (2004) occupies a special place in this context: it is a ‘costume d’apparat’ (ceremonial robe) for a Porsche. Vidya Gastaldon adorns the luxury car to resemble a medieval tournament horse. Through this intervention, the Porsche, as a lifestyle icon, loses its function as a sports car, for in this dignified guise, a high-speed drive is unthinkable. The garment is both protection and decoration, a soft, sensual covering, individualised and enriched with signs and symbols. The velvet cape features psychedelic rainbow motifs on the bonnet and fantasy coats of arms on the doors. The Porsche emblem, the rearing horse, is transformed by Vidya Gastaldon into a laughing donkey – with subtle humour, the artist brings the prestigious logo down from its pedestal.

Vidya Gastaldon’s drawings can be interpreted in a similar way. Formally, they are mostly small-scale landscapes composed of an organic, soft world of forms that manages almost entirely without sharp lines. In terms of content, the drawings are rather imaginative, and the formal aspects are overshadowed: coloured bubbles grow from a small patch of grass, or grey clouds rise above a flat landscape. Vidya Gastaldon’s work draws on a highly personal and subjective system of diverse references and connections. She adopts a playful approach to symbols from religion, mysticism and everyday culture. This perhaps wild mix can be read as an attempt to develop a kind of universal visual language. The artist builds on the power of archaic symbols and uses familiar motifs to create a sense of recognition and accessibility. In this endeavour towards understanding, the personal transforms into something universally human: the individual character of Vidya Gastaldon’s work is defined precisely by this humanity and the resulting worldview, which is also informed by experiences with Eastern religions. The artist works in a spirit of harmonious coexistence coupled with personal openness.

When it comes to contemporary art, however, the artist makes no direct reference to it. In fact, it is difficult to situate Vidya Gastaldon’s work within the context of contemporary art. What sets her apart within the contemporary art scene is the absence of irony. Irony creates a sense of distance from the subject matter, and this ironic detachment allows for a lack of commitment – which does not sit well with the seriousness of Vidya Gastaldon’s work. But the artist is not alone when it comes to a subjectivist reflection on the world that manifests itself in her work. Numerous younger artists today are turning away from the coolness of the 1990s and showing an affinity for spirituality, irrationalism and nature mysticism. The turning away from the political and from external social realities leads to inner worlds, to an art that seeks no direct confrontation and neither criticises nor accuses. Rather, inner visual worlds full of imagination are brought to life, a spiritual approach to reality is cultivated, and the artist’s own longings and dreams are shared with those of the audience, thereby opening up a new perspective on the reflection of one’s own existence.

The internationally renowned artist Aernout Mik (b. 1962) is presenting a major new video installation at the Kunstmuseum Thun. This marks the first institutional presentation of *Osmosis and Excess*, which he created last summer on commission from InSite. The Dutch artist interweaves footage of car graveyards on the outskirts of Tijuana (Mexico) with fictional scenes depicting a local pharmacy flooded with mud. Together with the medicines, the cars form a metaphor for the circulation of goods between Tijuana and San Diego. On the one hand, second-hand cars flow from the USA into Mexico, where they are eventually scrapped and left on the barren hills just outside the city, thereby altering the urban landscape. In return, cheap medicines flow from Tijuana into the USA – remedies for treating American ailments, desires and fears. The car wrecks and the medicines represent different forms of excess. Both intrude upon a landscape—one upon an external one, the other upon an internal one. On both the micro and macro levels, they also exhibit strange, coincidental similarities in their outward appearance. The film was shot in panoramic format as high-definition video to best illustrate the landscape.

Biography
Aernout Mik, born in 1962 in Groningen, Netherlands, lives and works in Amsterdam. He has held solo exhibitions at international institutions such as the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2005), the Haus der Kunst, Munich (2004) and the Fundació Miró, Barcelona (2002), and has participated in numerous group exhibitions.