"Art Now: Ian Kiaer"
2003-11-22 until 2004-01-25
Tate Britain
London, , UK United Kingdom

Tate Britain's Art Now programme reflects current developments in contemporary British art. It consists of up to five exhibitions a year which demonstrate the quality and variety of new art in the UK. Ian Kiaer makes carefully constructed assemblages comprising found objects, architectural models, paintings and drawings which form poetic narratives. The humble nature of Kiaer’s materials directly and consciously contrasts with the epic subjects depicted: a block of polystyrene represents a snow-covered sweep of land; an upturned plastic waste bin stands for a cliff face.

These forms derive from Kiaer’s research into the idealistic visions of eccentric historical figures, united in their desire for retreat from the dominant ideologies of their day, or concerned with reconciling the relationship between man and environment. For Art Now Kiaer brings together both new and existing works to explore the relationship between the landscape paintings of the sixteenth-century Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel and the working spaces of the twentieth-century Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Ian Kiaer, born in 1971, lives and works in London. He studied at the Slade School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. Recent solo exhibitions include Endless Theatre Project, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York (2003) and those at aspreyjacques, London (2003, 2001). He also showed in Dreams and Conflicts at this year’s Venice Biennale and Harmony, Happiness: A Survival Guide for Art & Life, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, also this year.

IMAGE
Ian Kiaer
Brueghel project/studio copyright the artist

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