infrastructure is much more important than architecture. – Rem Koolhaas
Melange is pleased to present Misael Soto’s first solo show,^1 Misael Soto: Solo Show. Containing painting, sculpture, video, photography, sound, performance, furniture, plant life, text, intervention, and gestures, Solo Showis both a singular work and a collaborative curatorial effort. say something here about the blurring of authorship.
the banal vs spectacle.
personal identity vs public persona.
action vs reflection.
life then art then life then art then…
Brechtian (Bertolt not George, tho i like George too) ^2

Jonas!

i’ll be wiring the money to u in the next days. i’m sorry for the delay, but i was waiting for some checks to trickle in.
i’m glad to hear u got a chance to talk to Taja. i actually do not want there to be any mystery between u, Patrick, and i. i just really haven’t needed to explain myself until now…
so the show called “Untitled (Solo Show)” has really progressed lately. it involves working with various practitioners to create works that present a mirror of the “gallery solo show”, the social aspects of art scene, and Melange itself. my intention is for these objects and actions to bring up thoughts about and confuse viewers on authorship, intention, and point to they’re very place in the gallery and the art world at large. this involves objects such as the two “show flyers” created with Chicago-based Willy Smart (see attached), a performance (Taja) dealing with gallery viewership, and video (Phillip and Henning) of that viewership which the performer will later view at the opening. there will also be a multi-layered mirrored image (Sophie Thun) covering both sides of the window; an image of what is there with the artist(s) present in the image. as well as a garment (Alexander Bornschien), a plant (Arden Sherman), and a painting (Domingo Castillo) which will actually be a photograph of a painting hung at an apartment in Cologne. i have yet to decide what i will be doing.
finally i want to talk to u both about a performative element for the two of u. thoughts winning in my head concern hyper amplification and/or minimalist simplification of ur existing roles. this is where the furniture object comes in, which i’m tentatively calling a High School Desk. i’m attaching an image of a recent sketch of what i see this looking like. it’s a casual work desk, the purpose of which would be for one or both of u to sit at when u attend the gallery. i’m not tied much to the sketch and would love to get in touch with the designer u’ve worked with in the past to get the ball rolling on this.
of course i would also like your input on all of this. both ur names will be on the artist list as u are as much collaborators in this as anyone else involved. consider ur involvement in this more so as an artistic collaboration than anything else.

i am about to fly to Berlin so i’ll now be on ur time. let’s Skype soon, yes?

_______________
1 Having solo shows of one’s artwork marks the achievement of success and usually is accompanied by receptions and a great deal of publicity. The show may be of current work being produced, those from a single time period, or representative work from different periods in the career of the artist, the latter is termed a retrospective.

2 I’ll admit that drama is a tool I’ve used, and I’m not entirely proud of it.
Although isn’t there something endearing about the parts of a whole that make a drama?

To be dramatic is to; make a scene, make a presence, state a point or emotion, ensure the delivery of the point or emotion, and, typically, to deliver with an emotion (of a lesser dignity, classically).

But, importantly, to use drama as a tool means that one cares enough to make a scene- one possesses enough drive and reason to justify a performance, knowing that the intentions may end fruitless and with disappointment.

My one critique is that drama requires knowledge of narrative, and is thus intimate.

xoAG