Newlyn Art Gallery

PAST EXHIBITION

Peter Geschwind: Automatic

April 19, 2008—June 28, 2008

The first solo UK exhibition by Swedish artist Peter Geschwind will fully utilize the industrial scale of The Exchange from 19th April till 28th June 2008.

Geschwind's entertaining and disconcerting installations are based on a "do-it-yourself" aesthetic, using the disposable products of the contemporary consumer culture. These everyday household appliances and builders’ tools are brought alive when sensors detect the visitor’s movements. Cooking utensils are spun by an electric drill, a rotary clothes drier whirls furiously, cheap garden furniture is stacked in teetering towers behind a tangled web of plastic mops and brooms, all lit by bright lamps that turn on and off as the visitor passes through the installation.  

At first this automated labyrinth is playful, an absurd amusement park, full of whistling and jangling noises, but as you explore deeper into the maze a darker undercurrent emerges. With projections and shadow-plays, the whirling contents of the physical room clashes with a hallucinatory, virtual world.

Automatic continues man’s unstoppable desire to create illusions, and to use these to amuse and surprise, as well as convey concerns of society.

Blair Todd, Exhibitions Manager says:

“Geshwind’s art uses the barely noticed everyday objects of your home and brings them alive, like a modern day Sorcerer’s Apprentice. This maze of kinetic constructions becomes a fairground, with a barrage of sensory impressions.”

Automatic was originally presented at Fargfabriken, Stockholm, in 2006, but has been dramatically reworked for The Exchange. Born in 1966 in Sweden, Geschwind has exhibited throughout Europe, as well as India and America. This exhibition is his first solo show in the UK.

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