OUT OF JOINT. Emanuel Röhss Curated by Ottavia Alloisio Crucitti. March 3-18, N Spring St, Los Angeles.

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1 OUT OF JOINT Emanuel Röhss Curated by Ottavia Alloisio Crucitti. March 3-18, N Spring St, Los Angeles.

2 Emanuel Röhss March 3- March 18 OUT OF JOINT Opening: March 3, 6-9 pm 818 N Spring St. Los Angeles, CA Out of Joint is a solo-show by Swedish born, Los Angeles based artist Emanuel Röhss, realized in collaboration with independent curator Ottavia Alloisio Crucitti. The works on view stem from Röhss ongoing enquiry into notions of time in relation with the architecture of the real and the architecture of the fictional worlds generated in our imagery by the cinema industry. This project spans between ancient Mesoamerican architecture, Mayan Revival in modernist Californian design and its recurrent iconography in Hollywood imagery. The exhibition treats the Mesoamerican aesthetics of the past as a primary material, an object for speculative thought, a vehicle for inventions and prophecies, but also recognizes its power to recur as a visual and psychological force. The four large-scale sculptures oriented towards the four cardinal points - gather their structures from the set designs of cults like Blade Runner (1982) and Game of Thrones (2011-), which in their turn follow architectural details from Frank Lloyd Wright s buildings in Los Angeles. The endless appropriation of Mayan aesthetics has built Western imagery of future and past. A time-based work, adjacent to the sculptures, creates a sonic environment reproducing through nine synthetic sine waves the nine cycles of the ancient Maya calendar, based on the solar system. The duration of each sine wave corresponds to the length of each cycle in the calendar. Their frequencies are determined by a light component situated in the space that is programmed according to the intensity of the sun s brightness on each day of the show in the location of the exhibition venue. The time is out of joint. O cursed spite/ That ever I was born to set it right! ( ) - Hamlet knows that his world is not right. Out of joint is the utterly disordered; a metaphor for a bone that has slipped from its juncture with another bone, or for a clock gear sprang from its mechanism. Abrahamic religions - Christianity in particular - have shaped our progressive concept of time as an ordered sequence of moments, of instants enchained one after another. Complementary to the linear notion of time, Western egocentrism has determined concepts of progress and modernity as its prerogative, establishing ideology and historiography as instruments of its supremacy. Röhss new body of work identifies the images of time as the result of architectural archetypes. Temporalization becomes here a metrical term of transcendental aesthetics, where architectural forms are indicators of the human experiences of time. Janus, the Roman gatekeeper of time and divine dimensions, makes his appearance on a rectangular plinth made of four solar panels; technology recently employed in endeavors of space prospecting and by companies that are currently turning science fiction into a scientific reality. Time is circular, but it does not endlessly repeat itself as Nietzsche and Spengler argued in their pessimistic visions. If Hamlet perceived his world as not right, then shouldn t we question ours as well? What if the progress we are constantly looking for is distributed in circles and we are a disjointed chain ring that need to be reconnected with an alter system? The present might be the right moment where to recapture these cyclical moments and enter into a new temporalization, as in a hula-hoop chain of temporal differences. Out Of Joint prompts us to reconsider our perception of time, history, and progress and the remarkable ways in which Mayan culture can reassert itself in contemporary aspects of our life and thought. Viewers are invited to read this exhibition as an atlas in which the map is bigger than the territory it indexes and time is neither fixed nor linear. Out of Joint is an economy of artworks and ideas that shake our comforting perception of time and progress. Histories, mythologies and narratives that inspire this exhibition haunt the past, the present and the future, while refusing to be categorized as neither fact nor fiction. Emanuel Röhss (born 1985, Gothenburg, Sweden) lives and works in Los Angeles. He has been subject of soloexhibition in Los Angeles, Sidney, Basel, Rome and London and recognized international awards. He has also been included in group exhibitions in Mexico City, London, Copenhagen, Venice and many other cities. Röhss studied at Royal College of Art in London. In his practice, Röhss explores the relationship between architectures from historical as well as contemporary civilizations and the creation of illusion and narrative in popular culture. The artist is interested in manmade environments where an imperative pathos, gesture or persona can be traced and identified as re-appearing in different contexts. In his long term project with the Ennis House he has explored how a real architecture comes to life as an animate being in its own right through the production of fiction realm of film, television and games. Working predominantly in sculpture, installation and painting each body of work is made with careful consideration to the specificity of the space it occupies. Ottavia Alloisio Crucitti is an independent curator, organizer and art advocate. She is working internationally and is based in Los Angeles. Her work is concerned with the connections between art and the history of images, between art and architecture, and the role that art, culture and their institutions play in social transformation. In the past two years, Ottavia has curated and co-curated multiple projects for the Percent for Art Program at the NYC Department of Cultural Affaires. She is currently working for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission in the Civic Art Program. Her education includes a Master s degree in Art History from the University of Rome La Sapienza and the EHESS of Paris, a Master s degree in Philosophy (Aesthetics and Politics) from the University of Rome La Sapienza, and Master s degree in Museum Studies from the New York University.

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4 Gatekeeper 2018, Hydrocal, solar pannels, aluminium x 45 / 33 x 33 x cm

5 Times Past and Future, 2018 Four channel digital audio, Duration: 43 min, 10 sec LED lights and aluminum, plexiglas, vinyl, mirror wire, 45 x 45 x 1 / x x 2.5 cm For video documentation follow this link:

6 The Shape of Fiction, 2018, hydrocal and aluminum, 18 x 18 x 138 and 19 x 19 x 144 / 45.8 x 48.5 x 452 cm and 48.2 x 48.2 x cm

7 This compositon w columns perpendicular to frame shot at night.

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11 Please direct any inquires to Ottavia Alloisio Crucitti at Phtoography: Gui Cha. All images and text Emanuel Röhss 2018.