Golden Peardrop Theatre, Daniel Knorr’s first solo exhibition at the gallery, is presented by PILEVNELI. The Adam Szymczyk-curated exhibition will be open to the public from November 3 to December 3, 2022.
Golden Peardrop Theatre, Daniel Knorr’s first exhibition in Turkey, is divided into three sections and is presented on each of the building’s three levels. The three collections of artwork reference the sociopolitical and aesthetic changes that followed the Second World War. The new leisure class in the United States and Western Europe embraced domestic industrial products as an ersatz of luxury in parallel to the Cold War due to increasing task specialization, hierarchical work administration, and strict labor division during the late phase of industrial capitalism that evolved into the service economy. A new, digital, networked phase of the information economy with intellectual capital as its motor is underway, and Knorr claims that the art of that era witnessed the sufferings of that civilization and the agonies of the consumer society, on whose remnants we live now. The emancipatory promise of the modern age is reactivated by Daniel Knorr’s works in “Golden Peardrop Theater” cultural anachronism is exposed, transformed into anarchy, and put back to use.
A group of ten brand new oil paintings and a bronze relief are on display in the gallery’s lower level. The pieces, which highlight Istanbul’s location at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, can be traced back to Hong Kong, where Knorr has had a studio for a number of years. The series, State Theatre, is named after the enormous relief that is prominently displayed over the entrance to the 1950s-era Hong Kong State Theatre. Knorr produced a bronze scale model and life sized paintings of relief fragments using images taken at night. The relief features representations of performing arts and legendary figures from Asia and Europe as an early allegory of the interplay of cultures.
The most recent incarnation of the Laundry series, on display for the first time during Art Basel Unlimited 2019 as part of its original performance, is located on the ground floor of the gallery. The series consists of canvases painted in a car wash that has been transformed into a “painting machine” after being erected on a life size model of one of the tiniest automobiles in existence.The futuristic Peardrop car designed by Victor Bouffort in 1952 was the inspiration for the sculpture “Laundry: Peardrop,” but it was never mass produced. The sculpture’s dimensions run counter to the auto industry’s exaggerated self-perception, which is reflected in the macho cult of ever-bigger and faster cars. The Peardrop microcar, on the other hand, is tailored to its passengers’ basic demands in any congested modern city. At PILEVNELI, Knorr’s Laundry: Peardrop, the ground level of the gallery opens up to the streets of Istanbul, with their constant traffic, automobile repair and sale stores, garages, and gas stations.
The “Golden Pillows” on the first level of the gallery make references to both Andy Warhol’s minimalist metal sculptures and his helium-filled silver balloons, but they actually have their roots in Albrecht Dürer’s “Pillow Studies” drawings. The most recent iteration of Knorr’s Canvas Sculpture series, the pieces are formed of gold leaves that are rubbed into the creases of the pillows after being cast in resin and affixed to the resin’s surface. Each action improves the material’s purity, going from the lowest available gold carat value of six carats to the greatest value of 24 carats.