Vijay Masharani
Give me that fucking content, Universe. 2023 
single channel video, r/t 1:53,



I spent my first days in New York in October 2017 wande- ring South Asian enclaves in the outer boroughs, hoping to visit neighborhoods similar to Kingsbury, where my grand- mother lives in North West London; for me, locating myself in a diaspora was a sort of stopgap against a creeping sense of post-college abeyance and formlessness. I spent an hour and fifteen minutes on the trains without an exact desti- nation. The homes were decorated for Halloween, when private residences acknowledge the slim commons of the sidewalk and preen for it. The goblins, ghouls, zombies, dismembered figures, skeletons, black cats, ghosts, spiders, spiderwebs, jack-o-lanterns, witches, pumpkins, today remind me that Indian religious art was first received in

the West as depicting demons, as described in art historian Partha Mitter’s book Much Maligned Monsters. Hegel, in his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, said that these artworks betrayed a somatic form of consciousness: the In- dian is “lost in a dream,” sees god everywhere, and through this ubiquity, quote “the Divine is thereby made bizarre, confused, and ridiculous ... degraded to vulgarity and senselessness.” For Hegel, Indian art depicts not monsters, but funhouse gods of a culture stuck in a hallucinatory reverie that can’t really impose cogent categories to divi- de up reality, instead smearing everything together into a single divine substance: “Sun, Moon, Stars, the Ganges, the Indus, Beasts, Flowers — everything is a God.” The fact of cultural difference posed a challenge to Hegel’s integra- tive system, stretched it to its limit, at which he resorted to caricature. However his failure is also a success: projected onto the Hindoo is something that would later be affirmed by psychoanalysis: that fantasies aren’t discrete from wa- king life, but are threaded into our relationships with each other and the world. In the past, I’ve described my haptic interventions into video sequences—augmenting, rotosco- ping, re-scoring, and compositing them—as an attempt to amplify, coax out, or herald the social abstractions, discou- rse, unconscious thought, and discarded sense data that are invisible and overlay our world.

And yet, sometimes I find the world already augmented as was the case with these houses outfitted with memento mori. I found the whole situation funny, a day trip daydream spent seeking capital-C Culture only to find capital-S Spirit. Later, a friend introduced me to Cameron Jamie’s photo book Front Lawn Funerals and Cemeteries, in which the artist took flights from Paris to LA in the mid 80s to take silver gelatin photographs of what he called “The American Grand Guignol,” and I related to his humo- rous, somewhat anthropological presentation of the holiday. A year later, in 2018, I returned with a helmet camera rig I fashioned out of a plasti-dipped motorcycle helmet, a tripod head, and a 360 ̊ action cam, and shot the opening sequence of Mourning in advance (2019), in which a camera rotates on a digital turntable, momentarily pausing on my face, and the houses at which I’m nervously staring. This video en- ded up establishing some coordinates within which I’m still working today: most of my work comes from traversing the city and happening upon scenes that crystallize broader dynamics, in this case, the soft horror of everyday life.

Five years later, upon returning to New York from London, where I completed my MA, I had an inkling to revisit this sequence and make a sequel. In part, it was a way to let go of the pressure to always come up with something novel, and experiment with working serially. However, a lot had changed in that interval, namely, life had become much more difficult and painful, and now for the most part, the decorations now struck me as generic and empty. The work that came from those shoots Give me that fucking content, exemplifies this shift: a manic, panicked, searching mecha- nical gaze frenetically scans the surrounding environment while the titular phrase is repeated with increasing derange- ment in voice notes I recorded between shots. Banal street scenes are rendered ravaged, spiky, saturated with aggressi- ve emptiness, and a demand balloons into a threat.

Vijay Masharani
2024
The Citadel of Copenhagen

Adrian Cadan

22.02.24— 24.03.24

Adrian Cadan (b. 1995) makes a notable return to Salon 75 after seven years. Cadan, distinguished as the gallery's first exhibiting artist in 2017, presents a new selection of paintings that explore the landscape of Copenhagen's Citadel. Drawing on the expressionist tradition, his work gesturally aligns with the painterly practices of German and American artists from the 20th century. By employing both figurative and abstract approaches, Cadan reexamines the essence and history of modern painting and image-making. His meticulous exploration and practice reflect a thorough historical engagement and introspection into the traditions of painting, highlighting the inherent challenges and opportunities it presents.



The Citadel (abstract) 2024
Charcoal on canvas

By the Citadel (in moonlight) 2024
Oil on canvas

By the Citadel, wood fantasy 2024
Oil on canvas



SHOW SHOW
03.02.2023 - 06.01.2024

Nicoleta Auersperg, Nadine Lemke, Jürgen Münzer, Mara Novak, Noushin Redjaian, Marit Wolters, Hui Ye.

Curated by: @gomoartspace

“With a broad artistic gesture, SHOW SHOW casts concepts such as empowerment, self-staging and selfoptimisation into the exhibition space and brings to question exclusivity of artistic creation as well as authority and expertise in art. In recent decades, the DIY movement has become increasingly influential in digital culture as well as in the art scene. The democratisation of artistic processes can no longer be denied; online resources antutorials in all areas are a reality. The exhibition scratches the surface of this supposed democratisation of art production through DIY and tutorials and humorously questions the dogmas of authority and expert knowledge in art production. DIY was once a punk movement, clearly positioned against commercialisation and in favour of democratic participation. By comparison, the majority of today’s DIY endeavors have been completely commercialised. SHOW SHOW makes these contradictions a subject and object of artistic exploration.


Dog, No Leash
23th September - 1th November 2023

Abbas Akhavan, Nanna Abell, Joe Bun Keo Marie Søndergaard Lolk, Jessica Olausson, Noah Barker.

Curated by: Theodor Nymark & Laura Fuglsang for Salon 75
@ Spazio Orr

The group presentation ‘Dog, No Leash’ curated by Salon 75 at Spazio Orr examines ephemeral strategies, metaphors and methodologies of contemporary art in conjunction with and in relation to painterly traditions of the reductive, sculptural processual qualities and vivid and transgressive intentions in a historical and ecological perspective.


I'm like a rotting apple, I change my shape and color. Falling from the old branch of a tree in a windy forest, displacing decayed leaves from the ground to the shore. That beach with all the stones, that once were elsewhere. The beach where someone walks a dog, with no leash, free to run wild and acting out.

I'm like a hare, out of reach, intangible, and always in the field. Moving through landscapes, with an attitude and a purpose. In a caravan, in a train, moving across landscapes. Always shifting shape, adapting my behaviour, changing the route.

I'm so lazy, never busy. Only running if chased, only sleeping when tired, only eating when hungry. Like a hunter acting as the deer, dressing as the woods. Adapting his behaviour, changing his color. I'm going shopping, always local, never import. Few meters, never miles. Bringing a bag, in the field, foraging herbs. Always local, crouching, collecting what’s around me, when I move, my assortment varies, always changing.

I'm always cleaning the room, always dirty, the dust accumulates. Wiping the counter, mopping the floor. Never finished, always cleaning. My house is dynamic, moving furniture from the bedroom to the kitchen.

I'm like water, always moving, shifting shape. Water from which someone drowns, from which I drink. I'm like the water in the river, along the route, through the mountains. Settlers align themselves along me. I'm like a field, always defined, never free. Always there, never here. Shifting shape, changing route. Moving across the landscape, always somewhere else.

I'm like a flourishing ivy, living on a castle, always changing shape, shifting colors. On the bricks, on the glass. Living on the walls of the castle, like I would live on a fallen dying tree.
Always shifting shape, adapting my behaviour, changing the route. No questions, only feelings.

Text by Theodor Nymark


Positions

22.07.23 — 15.09.23

Jan Domicz, Francesco De Prezzo, Frederica Francesconi.


——— It's a curious habit of mine to entertain the possibility of supernatural entities while sharing tales of the eerie and macabre.

Despite the rational part of my mind insisting that such things are impossible, I still find myself succumbing to the persuasive

influence of my own storytelling. It's almost as if the act of recounting ghost stories infuses the room with an otherworldly ambiance,

causing me to imagine shadows lurking where none exist and hearing spine-chilling noises that are likely just the natural sounds of an old house.

——— This tendency, however, is not uncommon. It reflects the way our brains work to make sense of the world around us. We are constantly

seeking patterns and connections, and when we encounter something that defies explanation, we instinctively search for alternative interpretations.

This is why context plays such a critical role in shaping our understanding of the world. However, even within the same context, the style and

formality of our communication can have a profound effect on how our words are received.
It's not just about the works we create, but how we position them - how we present them to the public, in what manner, and in what order we describe them on the chessboard.

Salon 75 is pleased to present its latest exhibition, featuring the works of three artists: Francesco De Prezzo, Jan Domicz, and Federica Francesconi.
This show explores the relationship between the artwork and its context, and how the surrounding environment can influence the interpretation and

perception of the exhibition. Through their approaches, these artists have challenged the traditional format of the "exhibition", their work is integrated into the exhibition space as a flux, creating a dynamic and interactive relationship between the object, and the representation of its.

As the text above suggests, our minds are wired to find patterns and connections, and the power of context, (as also the power of disposition) can have a profound impact on how we perceive and interpret things, reminding us and exploring the exceptional power of language in parametrizing and transmitting an experience.


Photography: All images copyright the artists and courtesy of the artists and
Salon 75, Copenhagen