#neilbeloufa

[felixkosok]

Poster for the upcoming exhibition „Global Agreement - Neïl Beloufa“ @schirnkunsthalle ⏩ ⏩ ⏩ for animated version. . . . . #schirn #neilbeloufa #global #animated #poster #posterdesign #graphicdesign #typeonly #typography #layers #blueplanet (hier: SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT)

[vandissima]

Exhibition Review of Neil Beloufa’s Digital Mourning @ Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan. Full Text provided below.

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Navigating Neil Beloufa’s Digital Mourning is a curious and puzzling ordeal. To reach this exhibition one must travel to the stale grayness of Milan’s industrial outskirts, where the towering site of Pirelli’s Hangar Bicocca blends in with its surroundings. The area accounts for an array of spectral buildings: an orderly succession of lackluster parking spaces unfolds into a decadent shopping centre, whose entrance is marked by a bulky orange sign; everything is eerily silent, and still, like the shiny car dealerships nestled among the herd of nameless office buildings. Hangar Bicocca does not impose on its dormant neighbors, and yet, upon entering, one discovers its fervent artistic spirit.

A few weeks have passed since Milan’s museums, galleries and cinemas have opened there doors to embrace the public once more, and, to be completely frank, attending an exhibition in the current climate felt like somewhat of an awkward affair. As I booked my free time-slot for Digital Mourning on Hangar Bicocca’s website, I had a sudden flashback of an exhibition hosted by Palazzo Reale last autumn: Journey into the Great Beyond. Tutankhamun RealExperience® — I shuddered at the thought. In the past year and a half cultural institutions have (often unsuccessfully) struggled to survive, and what managed to stay afloat often suffered a disconnect with reality. Nonetheless, it felt important to poke my nose beyond my doorstep and steadily repopulate abandoned cultural hubs, especially the ones that are free.

Entering the exhibition felt as promising as opening your phone after a while of deleting social media. The audience is in fact welcomed by a giant pink phone, nonsensical films glowing off of its screen. The films play uninterrupted, and ignoring whatever selection is offered on the inviting pad of buttons in front of the installation, mischievously suggesting choices for the audience’s viewing pleasure. Venturing forwards, a large Disneyland-styled facade mimicking moroccan architecture looks on to the mysterious room, Persian rugs are draped from the ceiling and blend in with the shadows. The space is immersed in a darkness that is frantically interrupted by random flashes of light. The unlit corners of the room host an array of mysterious objects that make it difficult to determine whether the space was large (as I remembered it to be) or perhaps, quite small and claustrophobic instead. Disorienting video projections slide off of fragmented and kinetic installations, and the onlooker is left to relinquish the need to make sense of the video, which is no longer a video, and simply observe the ever-changing reframing of the image.

In the centre of the main room, three robotic installations —each featuring a colorful screen, one red, one blue, one yellow— oppose each other. The colorful machines appear to be animated by an insubordinate AI: a set of buttons before each screen allude to the possibility to interact and choose what to see, however, regardless of the viewer’s command, random videos will appear on the screens. It feels as if the three have their own understanding and rhythm that is unknown to humans: there are moments where the trio take turns playing a recording, other times in which they simultaneously call attention to themselves in a confusing clash of voices. Most importantly, the electronic voices seem to give out the only instructions on how to navigate the disarming exhibition, if you are bored, use your phone as entertainment— one suggestion rang.

The chaos curated in this exhibition was often overstimulating, which induced a sort of comfortable abandon in following the misleading instructions of the computer voices. A feeling of discomfort followed me throughout the exhibition, the contradictory set of rules echoed throughout a room that was already layered with silent guidelines. Covid was responsible for some of these. A few interactive installations were deemed unfit for use due to health restrictions, regardless they played undisturbed, sitting there like human flytraps, baiting clueless museum-goers only for them to be reprimanded by staff upon interacting. I’m unsure is there was any signal to steer us away, maybe it was lost amongst the many other false signs. You never really know how to move in a space nowadays.

The noise, the pointless instructions, the artificial environment, the distorted visual information that was reproduced and morphed over and over. It was all too much, and yet there was something relatable in that alienation. I left the space only to find myself in the flat white outdoor area surrounding the building, in the dead stillness of that post-industrial nowhere-land. A rude awakening, perhaps, to the fact that there was no use in struggling to follow any of the single threads tangled in a larger web of illusions. 

[coitus-interruptus]

gli amanti 

[vickyfischer]

Ha Elizabeth !! #photography#elizabethlennard#christiandior#palaisdetokyo#neilbeloufa#kitsch#colors#paris#france#artwork#contemporaryart#reference#vickyfischer

[mindstreamworld]

“I am trying to find a way to reach independence so I don’t depend on people to produce my projects” - #NeilBeloufa #mindstreamworld

[artencountersdiary]

#Stunning #NeilBeloufa #SchenkelPavillion #berlin #berlinartweeekend #berlinstagram