Installation view
photo: Bernd Borchardt
Installation view
Photo: Bernd Borchardt
Untitled, 2016
Wooden bat, acrylic paint, boot holder, and a wall bike-stabilizer
75 X 30 X 10 cm
Untitled, 2015
metal, wood, leather string, and paint
43 X 20 X 10 cm
If Satan Lived in Heaven he'd be Me, 2016
Monster Magnet shirt, plastic, electric components
80 X 45 X 15 cm
Sonar, 2016
Wood, paint, graphite and a rope
235 x 235 X 7 cm
the balls, which are coated with graphite, leave their mark on the wall
Failure, 2016
unique phot-automat color print
11 X 10 cm
Untitled, 2016
wood, metal, leather, and silicone
85 X 68,5 X 1 cm
Big Boy, 2015
plastic gallon, vinyl, synthetic liquid
27 x 40 x 23 cm
Romeo 54, 2016
vinyl, metal, rope, plastic bottle, and water
print size: is 86 X 66 cm
snsaf, 2016
plastic and wooden cutting boards, kitchen towel, metal, and plastic coated paper
62 x 12 X 1 cm
Crotch, 2016
12 X 20 X 110 cm
ready made
The materiality and symbolism of Avior’s works interrogate conflicts, analogies and contradictions that tear at the very core of human existence. Nature and culture, security and helplessness, cosmos and chaos.
A central theme in Avior’s art is the collision of religion and fetishism. Thus, a chopping board inscribed with “Jesus” bound with a robust riveted strap becomes a grotesque crucifixion scene. Inverted as such, the word loses its original meaning and as a sign devoid of sense gives the exhibition its title.
The motif of hanging resurfaces in many of the works on show, conveying the idea of the vertical self transcendence of the profane into the holy and back again. Catholicism and BDSM are explored as abstract bodily practices, united by a desire for self dissolution – either through asceticism or excess – as well as a longing for archaic authority structures and indisputable rules of conduct.
The monsters and myths of popular culture – the crimes of serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer who was raised strictly Catholic, the horror film Alien – offer further ways into Avior’s objects whose intrinsic ambiguity is seen most clearly in a sculpture consisting of a plastic canister adorned with the logo of the US brand Crisco. This frying fat is stocked in supermarkets, yet is also sold as a lubricant in sex shops. Furthermore, Dahmer favored this brand when preparing his victims.
Similarly, the wooden chopping boards covered in cuts marks that reappear throughout the exhibition are also taken out of their familiar context of home cooking. Tightly strapped and hanging forlornly they become eerie symbols of perversion, brutality and violation.
Other works investigate the various excretory functions of human beings – bodily fluids, digestion and secretions amongst others. Beyond the realm of the visible the hidden appears as a mark, an imprint or an olfactory impulse. Even Avior’s Romeos, the result of failed digital downloads, do not reveal their meaning at first glance. They remain frozen in the limbo of desire forever after.
Dr. Diana Weis