ROBERT MONTGOMERY: CHAPTER 6

ROBERT MONTGOMERY

Brings a poetic voice and public interventionist strategies to the tradition of contemporary text art, and works across diverse media: billboard pieces, solar powered light installations, fire poems, woodcuts and watercolors. The artist has realized major outdoor light installations on the site of the old US Air Force base at Tempelhof in Berlin, and at Kochi-Muziris Biennale in 2012. His work has been included in numerous exhibitions at venues including KOP, Breda, NL; Athens Festival, GR; 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, IT; The De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill, UK; Galerie Nuke, Paris, FR; Guido Costa Projects, Turin, IT; 20 Hoxton Square Projects, London, UK; Galerie Analix Forever, Geneva; The Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh, UK; The BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Newcastle-Gateshead, UK, The Edinburgh Art Festival, UK; Anna Lupertz Gallery, Berlin; and C24 Gallery, New York. His monographs have been published by Galerie Nuke, Paris, and monokultur, Berlin. Forthcoming are a major collaboration with the Royal Opera House in Brussels and a monograph published by Distanz in early 2015.

PRESS RELEASE

ISTANBUL’74 and Galerie Nuke celebrated the opening of Robert Montgomery ‘’Chapter 6’’ exhibition in PARIS, October 20, 2015. CHAPTER 6 IN WHICH WE SIT LIKE DOCILE CATTLE WHILE YOU USE THE AESTHETICS OF PUNK ROCK TO SELL CREDIT CARDS BACK TO US is the latest show of Robert Montgomerys’ work in Paris and realised in partnership with ARTCOP21 of the COP21 climate conference and took place during the Paris FIAC. The exhibition officially opened to the public on October 21th with several new works that build on Montgomery’s on-going engagement with the seminal text “The Society of the Spectacle” by situationist philosopher Guy Debord. On Tuesday, October 20rd, a Private Preview for the opening exhibition were followed by an intimate dinner at CHEZ CASTEL in Paris, hosted by Demet Muftuoglu Eseli (Co-Founder of ISTANBUL’74 and of the ISTANBUL INTERNATIONAL ARTS and CULTURAL FESTIVAL), Jenny Mannerheim (The Founder And Creative Director Of EachxOther). Guests included; Alphan Eseli (Director & Screenwriter), Sarah Andelman (Creative Director of Colette ), Jerome Sans (Curator and art Critic) Louis Marie Castelbajac (French designer and entrepreneur), Ariel Deravenel (Jewelry Designer), Ilan Delouis (The Founder and Creative Director Of Each Other), Shwetal Patel (Art Curator), Joana Preiss (Actress and director), Delphine Roche (Costume Designer), Dan Thawley (Journalist & Editor), Noemie Ferst & Benjamin Moreu (Web-radio forerunner) among others. Scottish artist and poet Robert Montgomery follows a tradition of conceptual art, his work bringing a poetic voice to the discourse of text art. In his latest exhibition, CHAPTER 6 IN WHICH WE SIT LIKE DOCILE CATTLE WHILE YOU USE THE AESTHETICS OF PUNK ROCK TO SELL CREDIT CARDS BACK TO US, Montgomery explores ecological and social concerns through his watercolours, woodcuts, energy efficient light panels, and a new installation piece made from copper, recycled glass, and 12 volt LED lighting. This exhibition, realised in partnership with ARTCOP21 of the COP21 climate conference and taking place during the Paris FIAC , showcases several new works that build on Montgomery’s on-going engagement with the seminal text “The Society of the Spectacle” by situationist philosopher Guy Debord. We currently find ourselves in the middle of chapter 6, “Spectacular Time”, in which every last vestige of our lives has become commodified. Media and consumerism are on post-industrialisation overdrive, and we are no longer aware of ourselves, or of the impact we exert on the world around us. With subtle references to Jack Kerouac and Ezra Pound, Montgomery’s work implores us to take note of environmental and ecological issues, alluding to the unsustainability of the electric city that we have developed and highlighting the necessity of a radical change in lifestyle – a pertinent theme given that the United Nations Climate Change Conference will be unfolding in Paris later this year.