Thomas Bayrle & Helke Bayrle

Torun

Since mid-’60s, Thomas Bayrle has been creating, manually and through the use of the modest means, such as drawing and collage, complex visual and graphic patterns denominated „Superstructures“: images of strong, almost hypnotic and dizzying visual impact which he constructed through the process of obsessive repetition of motives taken from the popular and commercial visual vocabulary.

Very involving and seductive, on closer look, his works not only reveal a strong sense of humour, but also deep involvement in political and social problems. As a witness of frenetic post-war economic boom in the West, of absurdity of the Cold and Vietnam Wars, or of bitter disillusion with leftist ideologies, since the mid-’60s Bayrle has been depicting the contemporary world by underlining its most common, and at the same time, its most insane features: overproduction, overconsumption, overpollution, overpopulation, overexploitation.

These hypertrophic processes, which continue to accelerate day after day, echo through the mesmerizing patterns which Thomas Bayrle creates superposing bodies and machines, organic and artificial landscapes with unique graphic ability, be it drawings, prints, wallpaper, clothes, sculptures or all of these installed together, his works are like the essence of the spirit of our times: they accurately depict seductive and destructive power of our capitalistic civilisation.

CoCA Torun currently presents a selection of prints from the early-’70s to the most recent ones, together with some of the early animated films and installations with PVC „raincoats,“ as well as a new work specially realised for this occasion. In concomitance and in dialogue with Thomas’s work there is presented series of art documentaries that Helke Bayrle has been doing over the years. She has been documenting the activity of Portikus, among the most experimental art institutions, and out of this involvement she edited a film series titled Portikus Under Construction.

Centre of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu in Torun (CoCA)

October 5th – December 30th, 2012
Waly gen. Sikorskiego 13
87-100 Torun
Poland

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