The artwork features a black and white image of a flashlight against a plain background. The prominent visual elements are the cylindrical shape of the flashlight and the strong contrast between the dark metallic body and the bright beam of light. The text above the image provides a thought-provoking message, suggesting that it is better to shine brightly than to merely reflect. The minimalist composition and bold typography indicate a contemporary, conceptual approach, encouraging the viewer to ponder the deeper meaning behind the simple yet striking visual metaphor. ...
Mitchell Syrop’s lithographic and laser pigment prints and installations expose the human condition of being trapped within systems, be they interpersonal, societal, economic or political. Engaging with Syrop’s idiosyncratic use of language, text and found images means being told not to ‘quit your day job’ and reminds us of the irony of believing one is unique. Having studied under the original Conceptualists, including Huebler, Asher and Baldessari, Syrop, along with artists Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, engaged with commodification, mass marketing and the aesthetics of advertising. The clichés, or slogans of culture, present in Syrop’s work are inserted onto images of cells under a microscope or ‘perfect’, travel-advertising photographs of sandy beaches. Inviting multiple interpretations of his interchange between text and image, Syrop evokes a structuralist understanding of language as a system of arbitrary signs. The private, the public, love, grief, existentialism and subjectivity intertwine in the hands of the artist, whose work reveals human vanity and pride while remaining honest in its own complicity of recycling clichés.
Written by Goldsmiths CCA ...
In 2016 Croy Nielsen moved from Berlin to Vienna, where it is located in the beletage apartment of a historical building in the 1st district. The gallery was founded by Oliver Croy (AT) and Henrikke Nielsen (DK). Artists such as Nina Beier, Marie Lund, and Benoît Maire, have been part of the program since its inception, and were later joined by Olga Balema, Georgia Gardner Gray, and Sandra Mujinga. Vienna-based artists include Ernst Yohji Jaeger, Joanna Woś, and Soshiro Matsubara. The gallery has strong ties to the Nordic region, representing several artists from the Scandinavian contries and regularly participating in fairs and projects in the area. ...
