Gelatin Gelitin Gelintin

Galerie Perrotin Hong Kong presents “Gelatin Gelitin Gelintin”, a mega – mini – retrospective of Gelitin. Marking the most comprehensive presentation of their work in Asia to date, the exhibition surveys the collective’s prolific development over the last 20 years.

Gelitin formed in the mid-nineties in Vienna, Austria consisting of the four artists Ali Janka, Florian Reither, Tobias Urban, and Wolfgang Gantner. Characterized by disparate yet unifying backgrounds, the artists perform their practice on the fragile territory of humour, spontaneity, child-like naiveté, and blatant sexuality that has given rise to their over-the-top performances and visually enticing work.

Anticipating Relational Aesthetics, Gelitin plays with audience participation and collaboration, as a central core of their oeuvre. Attitudes become form and viewers are invited to join in as participants, defying their routine behaviour while enjoying art from a new perspective.

The exhibition encompasses the collective’s wide-ranging practices, spanning from performances and documentation of happenings to their iconic Mona Lisa series, also known as Flower plasticine paintings, and preparatory drawings from past and upcoming projects.

First exhibited at Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2008, the Mona Lisa series pays homage to the most famous painting in the world in a comical, typically-Gelitin manner. Their interpretation of the iconic lady, created with plasticine, bears no resemblance to its original, some almost devoid of anthropomorphic resemblance. Toying with the viewer’s imagination, Gelitin’s Mona Lisas dwell on the notion of cultural icon and query into its overarching power over human memory and perception.

Also on view in this exhibition, the series of “Falling Sculptures”. Placed on top of a custom-made pedestal, “Falling Sculptures” literally fall to the floor when a lever affixed to the bottom gets pushed. An aptly named title premeditating the object’s fate might not seem to illicit much surprise from the viewer. However, it is precisely this literalness that upends all expectations. While challenging the question of the value of a piece of art, these sculptures play with artistic practices like slapstick and the horror of “you break it, you buy it”.

In a very dark room, recalling of an adult cinema, lays a row of lit jars. The jars contain visually gruesome stuffed creatures pickled in oil. These sculptures derive from a public, commissioned playroom project named “Operation Lila” (New Hospital, Merano, Italy, 1999). A prominent essay written by the child psychologist Dr. Christine Kaniak-Urban accompanied the project. “Operation Lila” investigates the relationship between children and hospitals and by extension the fear and mental trauma such events can spawn. The possibility of operating stuffed animals is intended to help children understand and reinterpret the physically complex process, encourage them to gain courage, and consequently help subside the feeling of helplessness.

Finally, a series of short videos and a screening of Gelitin’s newly released documentary “Whatever Happened to Gelitin” by Angela Christlieb complete the survey. It recounts some of the most prodigious and wildly ingenious performance pieces the group has presented, including an in-depth look into one of their most important performances to date: “The B-Thing” (also on view).

In March 2000, the artists, through various tactics and succours, took out a window of the World Trade Center’s 91st floor, extended a self-made balcony, and stood outside the building for a little while, just minutes before sunrise. The entire process was captured on camera from a helicopter and a hotel suite across the world trade plaza.

Their performances and installations create new landscapes, providing an exhilarating outlet and push the boundary forward of social conventions and our perception of society.