DANIEL KNORR, GOLDEN PEARDROP THEATRE: PILEVNELI | DOLAPDERE

 

PILEVNELI is pleased to present Daniel Knorr’s first solo exhibition at the gallery entitled “Golden Peardrop Theatre”. Curated by Adam Szymczyk, the exhibition will welcome visitors between the dates November 3 and December 3, 2022.

 

The first exhibition of Daniel Knorr in Turkey, “Golden Peardrop Theatre” is structured into three parts displayed on the three levels of the building. The three groups of works evoke the socio-political and aesthetic developments in the aftermath of the Second World War. With increasing specialization of tasks, hierarchical work administration, and strict labor division during the late phase of industrial capitalism that evolved into the service economy, the new leisure class in the U.S. and Western Europe embraced domestic industrial products as an ersatz of luxury in parallel to the Cold War. According to Knorr, the art of that time witnessed the torments of that civilization and agonies of the consumer society, on whose remnants we live today, in a new, digital and networked phase of the knowledge economy, with intellectual capital as an engine at its center. Daniel Knorr’s works in “Golden Peardrop Theater" bring the emancipatory promise of the modern moment back into action— cultural anachronism exposed, turned into anarchy, and put back to work.

 

On the basement floor of the gallery, a series of ten new oil paintings and a bronze relief are on view. Highlighting the location of Istanbul between Europe and Asia, the works trace back to Hong Kong where Knorr has had a studio for several years. Entitled State Theatre, the series depict the huge relief placed prominently over the entrance of the Hong Kong State Theatre built in the 1950s. Using photographs taken by night, Knorr created a scale model in bronze and life-sized paintings of fragments of the relief. An early allegory of the interaction of cultures, the relief presents depictions of performing arts and mythological characters from Asia and Europe.

 

The ground floor of the gallery hosts the newest iteration of the Laundry series, exhibited for the first time at Art Basel Unlimited 2019 as part of its original performance. The series consists of canvas paintings, first assembled on the life-size model of one of the smallest cars in the world, then painted in a car wash converted into a "painting machine”. The sculpture “Laundry: Peardrop” named after the futuristic Peardrop car developed by Victor Bouffort in 1952 never went into mass production—its dimensions oppose an exaggerated self-perception of today's automobile industry, reflected in the macho cult of ever larger and faster vehicles. In contrast, the Peardrop microcar corresponds to the modest needs of its users in any congested modern city. At PILEVNELI, Knorr’s Laundry: Peardrop opens up from the ground floor of the gallery to the streets of Istanbul, with its relentless traffic, car sale and repair shops, garages, and gas stations.

 

The “Golden Pillows” on the first floor of the gallery refer to both Andy Warhol’s helium-filled silver balloons and minimalist metal works—and yet, they originate from Albrecht Dürer’s “Pillow Studies”drawings. The most recent development of Knorr’s Canvas Sculpture series, the works are made of gold leaves attached to the surface of resin in the casting process of pillows, and rubbed into the pillows’ wrinkles. Starting from the lowest gold carat value available of six carats, each work increases the purity of the material used, until the highest value of 24 carats.

 

Daniel Knorr’s solo exhibition “Golden Peardrop Theatre” can be visited Tuesday through Saturday between 10:00 am-6:00 pm at PILEVNELI Dolapdere.

 

The exhibition is held with the contributions of Samsung Electronics Türkiye.