“Avatar II” an exhibition by Anne Imhof at Sprueth Magers

Anne Imhof’s new solo exhibition at Sprüth Magers in London, expands upon the narrative arc of Imhof’s recent works. A combination of oil paintings, large-scale paintings on aluminum panels, and drawings to film and sound interweave notions of reality and artifice, presence and absence, exposure and concealment as well as fitness equipment and gym furniture are installed throughout the gallery, blurring the boundaries between functional object and art while creating a multilayered experience as visitors encounter and move through Imhof’s abundant spaces.

Imhof’s spatial orchestrations are evident from the outset: as visitors approach the exhibition from street level, their line of sight into the gallery’s glass storefront is delimited, boxed in by rows of lockers and blocked in part by the back of one of Imhof’s aluminum panel works suspended unexpectedly from the ceiling. Just below this hanging panel, at the back of the room, one catches a glimpse of a painting depicting Imhof’s collaborator Eliza Douglas. The image is captured from a performance last year as part of Imhof’s celebrated exhibition Natures Mortes at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. Walking deliberately, her torso nude, she has obscured her face with a sinister clown T-shirt pulled over her head, taking on the guise of a jester. A rare figurative painting in Imhof’s oeuvre, this work sets a tone of beauty, imagined dystopia and foreboding that frequently accompanies the artist’s work.

On View Till December 23rd.

7A Grafton Street
London, W1S 4EJ
+44 20 / 7408 1613
www.spruethmagers.com

Photos by Jethro Turner

Text adapted from Sprüth Magers

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