Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst
Archive
2024–2021
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020–2011
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2010–2001
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000–1991
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990–1981
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
1984
1983
1982
1981
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, rain, window, workspace, 2016
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, mirror tiles (fiction), 2019; Untitled, sheet of paper (A4), desktop, 2002; Untitled, sheet of paper (A4) or paper document, golden stars, 2003; Untitled, cotton thread or clothes thread, lighter, with or without desk, 2004; Untitled, sunlight or spotlight replicating the incidence of light, desktop, 2014. Compilation of video documentations. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, mirror tiles (fiction), 2019; Untitled, rain, window, workspace, 2016. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled,tinted rear windows (sham). Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci. Can Carry No Weight, installation view, GAK Bremen 2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, sunlight or spotlight replicating the incidence of light, desktop, 2014. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, sheet of paper (A4), desktop, 2002. Action GAK Bremen 07.09.2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, sheet of paper (A4), desktop, 2002. Action GAK Bremen 07.09.2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, desktops, flat screens, 2017. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, cotton thread or clothes thread, lighter, with or without desk, 2004. Action GAK Bremen 07.09.2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, cotton thread or clothes thread, lighter, with or without desk, 2004. Action GAK Bremen 07.09.2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, sheet of paper (A4) or paper document, golden stars, 2003. Action GAK Bremen 07.09.2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci. Can Carry No Weight, installation view, GAK Bremen 2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, sunlight or spotlight replicating the incidence of light, with or without desktop, golden and silver BIC ballpoint pens, 2010. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, sunlight or spotlight replicating the incidence of light, with or without desktop, golden and silver BIC ballpoint pens, 2010. Aktion GAK Bremen 07.09.2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, photocopy machine, atlas, paper handkerchief, 2018. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, office armchairs, 2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, office armchairs, 2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci. Can Carry No Weight, installation view, GAK Bremen 2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne
  • Marie Cool Fabio Balducci. Can Carry No Weight, installation view, GAK Bremen 2019. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne

Marie Cool Fabio Balducci
Can Carry No Weight

more images >
07.09–22.12.2019

Marie Cool and Fabio Balducci have collaborated as an artist duo since 1995. They attracted attention through actions in which they respond with simple gestures to the physical characteristic of materials. The materials involved are simple office supplies and work material: Cool Balducci aligned, for example, the position of a DinA4 sheet of paper in keeping with the incidence angle of sunlight, or they stroked fingers over a stretched tape to produce the soft buzzing sound of an insect. The execution is concentrated and almost compulsively decelerated. By integrating a poetic moment, they break with the functional attributions of the respective object: the outside world and nature enter into the closed space of the economics and productivity.

“Can Carry No Weight” describes the limits of a load-bearing capacity. Whether it is that of an individual or that of an object remains ambiguous. What is certain is that a maximum capacity has been reached and the respective system no longer cannot or does not want to permit more. In a kind of artificial lab environment, objects are disseminated across the exhibition whose erstwhile function was to withstand weights: metallic floor tiles, dismantled office desks or a series of tinted car windows of SUVs. Detached from their respective production chains, the objects appear dysfunctional and residual, expectant and static. In this scenario of a disused world, Marie Cool Fabio Balducci uses the objects to launch new actions, which can be seen both live and during the exhibition as video documentation.

“Can Carry No Weight” reads like a sign of fatigue, a failure, an attitude of refusal, perhaps even as a warning to a system that is on the brink of collapse because of its waste of resources: Here, between abstraction and unproductivity, between resistance and the specification to do nothing, is where according to Marie Cool Fabio Balducci the objects, actions and settings abide in the dubious darkness of their classification, goals, functions and standards.

Marie Cool was born in 1961 in Valenciennes in France, Fabio Balducci in 1964 in Ostra (Ancona, Italy). They live and work in Paris and Pergola (Marche, Italy). It is the first solo exhibition of the artist couple in Germany.

Read more
07.09–22.12.2019

Curated by
Regina Barunke

Publication

Marie Cool Fabio Balducci. Can Carry No Weight (exh. booklet, ed. R. Barunke, GAK, 2019)

Annual edition

Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Untitled, photocopy machine, atlas, paper handkerchief, 2018

Events

Fri 06.09.19, 7–10pm
Opening
Introduction by Regina Barunke
Keynote by Adam Szymczyk, and
Marie Cool Fabio Balducci:
Random daily activations

Sat 07.09.19, 11am–6pm
Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Random daily activations

Sat, 16.11.19, 11am–6pm
Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Random daily activations

Sun, 17.11.19, 11am–6pm
Guided tour with Regina Barunke, and Marie Cool Fabio Balducci: Random daily activations

Sun, 8.12.19, 11am
Guided tour with Sarah Maria Kaiser

Support

Senator of Culture of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Bureau des arts plastiques of the Institut français and the French Ministry of Culture, Q-International. La Quadriennale di Roma, Beate + Hartmut Schaefers Foundation, Clean Run Service Team, Bremen

Back to top