Soot and Spit (30 Jan 2010 - 13 Mar 2010)

Artists: Sunah Choi, Rumiko Hagiwara

For its first show Sils has chosen to present a two-person exhibition featuring the Japanese artist Rumiko Hagiwara (based in Den Haag) and Korean artist Sunah Choi (based in Berlin).

Blending with a nice artist's pencil; gently drafting the appearance of an object isn't what this show's about. This is Soot and Spit; making something remarkable from what there is at hand. The practice of both Choi and Hagiwara seems to have this ethos at, or near to, its heart. The artists use simple gestures and materials to create works that open the gates to more interesting areas. Both are guides to where these gates can lead. Whether it be the slightly absurd means that significance is placed on the navigation of a space or the visceral twisted-ness of playing with string.

Choi's Briefly is a series of collages made from articles taken from the International Herald Tribune. Line by line these stories are cut up and stuck on black paper to form compositions based on the grid. From a far these works can be viewed for what they are; elegant monochrome, linear drawings. However the white soon seems not to be white enough. The sharp lines are blurred, muddied even, by text that portrays a reality outside the rarified air of such aesthetics. Train crashes, storms and bomb plots are the very material this beauty is made from.

Hagiwara's work is a reappraisal of space and the objects within it. They are chance encounters with things and places in which their purpose and objecthood is playfully skewed, for better or worse. What else is the meeting of wall and floor for other then a place to roll a ball. In Pen, a simple torch provides the spotlight in which a biro can shine, allowing it to project its 'real' self.