The show consists of five interconnected parts produced during the last two years: A series of large scale graphite and colour pencil drawings created on paper by an innovative methodology that depicts books as the building-blocks of idiosyncratic institutions; ‘STONEHENGE’, ‘WWW’, ‘NEW TATE’, ‘EMBLEM’, ‘RUINS I’, will fill the main walls of the gallery. An ‘ON-LINE DATA FLOW’ of favorite books titles/authors, selected by invited international contributors from the art world. ‘METABOOK’, a plinth-mounted silk-screened book sculpture; ‘10 FLAGS/EMBLEMS’, silk-screens extracted from METABOOK, that form a wall-based installation and a spoken word performance by guest artist Douglas Park who will embody the Library’s body of knowledge as a living encyclopaedia. The man who became a book!
‘Add To My Library Vol. II’ is dialectically related to the book practices of John Latham, and writer Walter Benjamin among others, invites the public to re-interpret their own belief systems, and re-contextualise bibliographic experience. In a globalised environment increasingly dominated by the digital book market, e-learning and hypertext, Mitrentse’s project alludes to a Meta-Library designed to provoke changes in the function of the material book, and the user’s relationship with it, while de-institutionalising it in the process. Being a critique on the book as sacred object and site of subjectivity the ensuing images are humorous, sardonic and nostalgic at the same time.
Mitrentse is increasingly known for her extensive commitment to drawing, as an autonomous yet rational primary mode within her practice. Highly descriptive and meticulous, her drawings marry aspects of Pop Art and realistic representation, to underpin ongoing manifold site-specific productions, enabling cryptic narratives and discourses to be generated. For instance in her well celebrated solo project ‘Building my Library’ (2009) and ‘The Secret School’ (2005) provocative exhibition housed in a WW II, bomb shelter, or even in the popular sculpture series of Pillar, Tomb, Fungi created from Mitrentse’s collection of destroyed and defaced Atlases, popular novels, academic textbooks, which have formed her artistic identity over the last 20 years.
Mitrentse has exhibited extensively in galleries, museums and public spaces internationally including the Liverpool Biennial UK, ICA London, NDSM-werf Amsterdam, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art Greece, Royal Academy, UK. Her work has been profiled and reviewed in major publications including AN Magazine, Frieze, InteraRtive, and has been acquired by prestigious private and public collections including Greenwich Council, Woman’s Library Goldsmiths College, Sill Library Bath, Tate Archive, Griechische Kultustiftung Berlin, M. Altenman N.Y, Onassis Foundation, Gr. Benaki Museum Athens, E.Venizelos Airport Athens.
An analysis of works by art critic Peter Suchin accompanies the exhibition.
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© Art Work Space 2011