Martin Soto Climent
Raphael Danke
Jennifer West

For the group show In Apertura, LA-based artist Jennifer West will present two films - examples from a series of cameraless films produced in 2005/6. Using a variety of techniques, West exposes, manipulates and transforms 16mm film stock to produce results reminiscent of 60s psychedelic visuals. West uses a range of everyday materials to marinade the film, from toothpaste to patchouli incense, Pepto-Bismol and guacamole, and exposes them with light sources such as fireworks; static electrical sparks and Xerox light. Other alchemic materials that transform the film include Jim Shaw’s urine and Comme des Garçons perfume, amongst West’s cocktail of corrosives. In this exhibition we will present West’s’ Tar Smell Film (16mm film negative exposed with cigarette light, dragged along beach sand tar, rubbed with skin so soft lotion and dripped with manic panic hair dyes – based on notes for Tar Scent by CdG) and Yeah Film (16mm film leader soaked in clover, belladonna and poppy tea, inscribed with the word yeah written in beet-juice and Pepto-bismol) which together, through their titled narrative and heady hallucinatory abstraction evoke a tale of the West Coast, of hanging out at the beach, smoking and drinking mind-altering teas.

In Raphael Danke’s collages, the subject is removed from the page, leaving a void or aperture: an unidentifiable shape. The images assume the feeling of a missing person from the room. Remaining sections of furniture, hair, light and shadow point towards the one time presence of the figure, but the mood reflects the absence. The collages give the impression of an empty film set or stage, where the potential of the missing body is felt as a latent energy. Danke interweaves the substance of the fictive space with the physical and psychic energy of the absent human body.

Mexican artist Martin Soto Climent combines everyday objects to create simple sculptures that, through their seemingly effortless combination emphasise their loaded histories. Using often sexually charged objects such as pearls, shoes, hats and bicycle saddles, Climent creates relationships that examine masculine and feminine motifs and relationships between the urban and the body. Climent’s sculptures sometimes rest together harmoniously, sometimes focusing on their tenuous contact, and sometimes to create friction. Despite their apparent simplicity the sculptures are loaded with their own power and symbolic significance.


For further information or images please contact Sarah McCrory:
+44(0) 20 8981 3344 or: sarah@vilmagold.com