GALERIE METRO

| Introduction
| More about Daniel Rode

Opening: Friday, June 25, 7 - 10 pm | June 26 - July 30, 2010

Galerie Metro is delighted to announce the opening of the first solo exhibition by Daniel Rode in our gallery. A great deal of Rodes work is based on the non-intentional of life: words heard in the “wrong” context or taken literally, things seen from the “wrong” perspective, situations with strange coincidences. Since almost one year now Rode is living in Kairo where all of this is very much intensified. The new installations of this exhibition are drawn from this experience of a continuous lapse.
The title of the exhibition refers to three new works of Rodes. The work ”Jimgo” originates from a road sign or public advertisement in Kairo. By a westerner the arabic letters of this sign might be misread as “Jimgo” and thus evoke a process of unintended associations. In taking over the unintended as sign the artist points out how the mind permanently slips into a world of its own.

The “Moon” in the title refers to a work picturing the in Cairo omnipresent so called half moon. Rode is taking the name of this symbol literally and shows half a moon geologically correct with craters and mountains. This seemingly naïve gesture provokes reflections on the precarious and complex relations of sign and meaning. Especially in the case of an overcharged and politicized symbol like the half moon the naivety of Rodes gesture has a literally disarming effect.

The third of the title-giving works is a 2,50 m high aluminum rack framing a neon tube in the form of a ring in the upper third of it. What is framed by the rack corresponds perfectly to the literal sense of the word halo. Yet the neon tube immediately suggests being a sign of holiness while the emptiness underneath it seems to refer to an absent saint that the halo would belong to. This way the sign refers to the process of its writing through interpretation rather than to a metaphysical absence. Unless one do not take the “metaphysical” suggested by this installation literally so that the frame, in this case the aluminum rack, would just be a hint on an intellectual context as the condition of an appearance of whatever condition.

GALERIE METRO
Directors Hannah Beck-Mannagetta +49 (0)160 9766 1814 and Kai Schupke +49 (0)157 7613 1617, Wilhelmstrasse 6 | 10963 Berlin | Germany | +49 (0)30 4171 7871 | info@metro-berlin.net | www.metro-berlin.net, Opening hours Tuesday–Saturday 2-6 pm and by appointment