D O U G + M I K E S T A R N

(1)

D O U G

+ M I K E

S T A R N

(2)

Doug & Mike Starn: The No Mind Not Thinks No Things

6 November 2013 - 11 January 2014

HackelBury Fine Art is delighted to announce the first UK solo show of American artists Doug and Mike Starn. Working collaboratively, the identical twin brothers continue to defy categorisation by combining separate disciplines such as photography, sculpture, architecture and performance.

Doug and Mike Starn have received major acclaim worldwide for their on-going site-specific series Big Bambú, monumental architectural installations formed of a network of bamboo poles and rock climbing rope. Premiered to the public at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York rooftop exhibition in 2010, Big Bambú You Can't, You Don't, and You Won't Stop attracted 631,000 visitors and was the 9th most attended exhibition in the Metropolitan’s history. The second Big Bambú was inaugurated at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 where Big Bambú spiraled over 22 meters high by the Guggenheim on the Grand Canal. The third piece in the series, curated by Francesco Bonami for the collection of the Museo MACRO Rome: over 50 meters tall, the habitable sculpture has a capacity of up to 60 people.

World renown architects and firms Renzo Piano, Tadao Ando, SANAA, Diller Scafidio and Renfro, Herzog & de Meuron, and SOM have all reached out to the Starns and embrace their philosophical architecture. Francesco Bonami writes about Big Bambú:

"Through this work, the Starn brothers have shown that it is possible to create one of the very few pieces of contemporary art that embraces organics and life and demonstrates the ability to draw in the spectator and englobe the viewer as an integrating part of the process...The series in bamboo is in reality an 'anti-monument' that lauds the creative process and conviviality... a 'magical' piece of architecture and sculpture that answers to the individual’s culture. ...It is not a piece that can be banally termed ecological. It is biological. From its conception to its realization to ultimately its fruition, this piece has always been alive." Big Bambú evolves and grows as a team of climbers manually lash together the poles of freshly cut bamboo with nothing but climbing rope. The climbers who build it with the Starns are part of the art, the sculpture grows organically without plan in a random interdependence placing new poles in response to the previous poles, creating a stable and energetic structure. The latest installation, Big Bambú #8 utilizes and comprises an entire bamboo forest. Built for the Naoshima

Museum, it premiered this summer for the Setouchi Triennale on the small island of Teshima in the Seto Sea of Japan.The artists and their team of 15 climbers created a 20 meter long Bambú fishing boat atop the leaf canopy at 20 meters high in the heart of the bamboo forest.

(3)

As part of their 15th anniversary celebrations, HackelBury Fine Art has commissioned 15 sets of unique new works from Doug & Mike Starn: the no mind not thinks no things. These pieces have grown out of the emblematic Structure of Thought series created by the brothers since 2001 and capture and transform the energy and experience of Big Bambú.

The Starns write: “We are fascinated by connections and rhizomatic fluency. The trees’ natural hierarchy is collapsed when the trees are silhouetted, creating rhizome-like connections everywhere. We feel this is representative of thought and creativity and the invisible architecture of societies and how we all move through life.”

The exhibition is articulated around the unique multiple-piece sets. The individual translucent artworks are made of several different images combined. The lines of one branch do not continue across an unbroken image, the connections are lost. The eye moves from following the image to following the physical edge of the sheet of paper and then picks up another image line and follows that, until the physical interrupts you- a play between image and physical disruption- a break of concentration and the discipline needed to achieve the no mind is fought for. The viewer is invited to participate, as each set of works, envisioned as a chaotic puzzle, can be combined in a variety of sequences, or each segment viewed individually.

The exhibition at HackelBury Fine Art will include several of the these unique puzzles, several larger scale unique pieces, and selected works from the Structure of Thought series.

Notes to Editors:

Doug and Mike Starn were born in New Jersey in 1961. They work from the former Tallix foundry in Beacon, New York, which acts as a giant laboratory studio space. Their art has been the subject of numerous solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, beginning with the 1987 Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial, New York. The Starns have received the following honours: two National Endowment for the Arts Grants in 1987 and 1995; The International Center for Photography’s Infinity Award for Fine Art Photography in 1992; artists in residency at NASA in the mid-nineties.

The Starns are represented in international public and private collections including: La Bibliotèque Nationale, Paris; La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Jewish Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and, Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan, amongst many others.

(4)

(5)

(6)

(7)

(8)

(9)

DOUG + MIKE STARN - BIG BAMBÚ

BB 10/19/09-90650, 2009

Archival inkjet print on gelatin coated Zerkall paper Art size: 21 x 21 inches / 53.5 x 53.5 cm

DOUG + MIKE STARN - BIG BAMBÚ

BBMet_03.15.2010

Archival inkjet print on gelatin coated Zerkall paper Art size: 21 x 21 inches / 53.5 x 53.5 cm

(10)

(11)

(12)

(13)

(14)

Structure of thought 17 & 18, 2001-2006

Epson K3 Ultrachrome and MIS inkjet prints on cotton rag and Gampi papers with varnish Art size: 27 x 22.5

DOUG + MIKE STARN - STRUCTURE OF THOUGHT

Structure of thought 22, 2001-2012

Epson K3 Ultrachrome inkjet prints on cotton rag and Gampi papers with varnish Art size: 72 x 72 inches / 182.9 x 182.9 cm

(15)

(16)

(17)

(18)

(19)

Doug & Mike Starn:The No Mind Not Thinks No Things

6 November 2013 - 11 January 2014

All images © Doug + Mike Starn / Courtesy HackelBury Fine Art, London / Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York. Press enquiries to Amy Barder at Four Colman Getty: amy.barder@fourcolmangetty.com or Tel: 020 3023 9025. Page 1

Detail: the no-mind not-thinks no-things, verthig, 2012-2013 K3 Ultrachrome inks on Kozo paper with varnish

Art size: 96 x 134 inches / 243.8 x 340.4 cm

(left) Detail: the no-mind not-thinks no-things, verthig, 2012-2013 K3 Ultrachrome inks on Kozo paper with varnish

(right) Detail: the no-mind not-thinks no-things, sonbet, 2001-2013 K3 Ultrachrome inks on Kozo paper with varnish

Art size: 63 x 86 inches / 160 x 218.4 cm

Frame size: 69.75 x 92.75 inches / 177.2 x 235.6 cm

the no-mind not-thinks no-things, sonbet, 2001-2013 K3 Ultrachrome inks on Kozo paper with varnish Art size: 63 x 86 inches / 160 x 218.4 cm

Big Bambú, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 20th 2010

Bambú, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 20th 2010

(left) Big Bambú, New York, May 24th 2011

(left) Big Bambú, Venice, 2011

Page 9

(left) Big Bambú, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 25th March 2010

(left) Big Bambú, Teshima, July 2013

Detail: Big Bambú, Venice, May 2th 2011

Bisteke,

Unique K3 Ultrachrome inks on Kozo paper with varnish

mitlopsok, 2003-2013

Unique K3 Ultrachrome inks on Kozo paper with varnish Art size: 30.75 x 72 inches / 78.1 x 182.9 cm

(left) Structure of Thought 22, 2001-2012

Epson K3 Ultrachrome inkjet prints on cotton rag and Gampi papers with varnish Art size: 72 x 72 inches / 182.9 x 182.9 cm

Frame size: 80.75 x 80.75 inches 3.3 inches / 205.1 x 205.1 x 8.4 cm

Archival inkjet prints on cotton rag and Gampi papers with varnish Art size: 40.5 x 33.8 inches / 102.9 x 85.9 cm

Frame size: 48 x 41.25 inches / 121.9 x 104.8 cm

Archival inkjet prints on cotton rag and Gampi papers with varnish Art size: 40.5 x 33.8 inches / 102.9 x 85.9 cm

Frame size: 48 x 41.25 inches / 121.9 x 104.8 cm

(20)

Page 15

Detail: Big Bambú

(left) Big Bambú Rome, July 15th 2009

Starn Studio, New York, 2012

Detail: the no-mind not-thinks no-things, verthig, 2012-2013 K3 Ultrachrome inks on Kozo paper with varnish

HACKELBURY FINE ART LTD 4 LAUNCESTON PLACE, LONDON W8 5RL T: 020 7937 8688 F: 020 7937 8868 www.hackelbury.co.uk