Josef StrauLoyaltiesFebruaryFeb 2nd - AprilApr 1st, 2016Gaga Mexico City

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

While the music of Marina Rosenfeld appears to be concerned with form and function of memory itself, activating the operations and the mechanisms of memory, Josef’s work is more an act of rebuilding relationships to concrete objects of individual memories and transforming them in sequences and in similarities. Josef relates to and thereby rebuilds the environment of the pianos of his early memories and his idiosyncratic relationship to the object, turning them into a mute piano, for instance perceiving the piano as an intensely uncanny trojan horse in the environment of the civil houses’ interior.

Music is thus like a space of a superior apparatus of the human mind, where the music becomes itself expression of the ontological modes of memory. Whereas, maybe sadly, the condition of art and text production, at least in this case, is always to work and to converge the object of memory into a referential form. Instead the “birth of music” appears as the imagination of memory and as an apparatus of memory itself.

The artist does not conceive his objects interiorly, but is always dependent on the sometimes quite random conception from the exteriorities, as if he was an attending empty black box before conception. But why then, asks the artist, who reflects and consequently starts writing on his own production, why are the objects that blunder randomly into the space of production, entailing such presence of figurative silly objects like mute pianos, somnambulant donkeys, faces in the shadow, bizarre music stands and other folkloristically shaped representatives? The artists remembering referentiality being generally dependent on the banal objects of the houses interior that surrounded the experiences of music, like the icons and music stands surrounding it, even while the early aim of the production was to incorporate the sublime condition of music itself. Such art production always remains in a condition to deal with the primitive and visually perceived object in order to consult memory for the production of any meaningfulness to conceal its use value and the hideous condition most virtuoso, a birth of objects through music as tragedy of transcending its own fundamental meaningless. Still one could conclude, the artist tries to make some sense by reaching out into modes of collaboration and by eventually transcending the objects towards the idea of music, as it was for instance given by Marina Rosenfeld’s composition as model for memory as object and function in itself.

But such romantic notion of art and tragedy that resembles the earliest Nietzsche writings somehow appeared to be redeemed with the particular selection of the music of Marina Rosenfeld during the opening performance that included some strong references to Couperin. The tragedy is not within the spirit of music. The entertaining sound pieces dedicated to the comparable small moments of daily life have illuminated the mute objects and pictures of the exhibition. Like a shot into the space of the artists self pitying tragedies, his grotesque mindset that resembles more the attitudes of Wagner and Beuys then Couperin and Offenbach, the latter whose compositions the late Nietzsche so wisely made to his main model to explain the spirit of music and art is not tragic. Enough!

Installation
views

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Works

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
the Demon who hated the piano and became an artist later, 2016
Tin and mother of pearl plates on canvas.
36.61 x 23.82 x 1.77 inches
93 x 60.5 x 4.5 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
The man who cries, 2016
Tin and glass lacquer on canvas.
35.63 x 24.21 x 1.26 inches
90.5 x 61.5 x 3.2 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
jonah’s whale, 2016
Tin and marker on canvas.
35.43 x 23.98 x 1.97 inches
90 x 60.9 x 5 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
piano to write a text in, 2016
Aluminum, lead, brass, wood, lamps, wire and leather bracelet.
52.56 x 83.46 x 47.24 inches
133.5 x 212 x 120 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties
House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
The Mute Piano, 2016
Extruded polystyrene, lead, chandelier, wood and metal chain.
Dimensiones variables

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
The Donkey that thinks too much, 2016
Tin, lead, mother of pearl plates on canvas and melamine foam.
47.44 x 31.89 x 1.97 inches
120.5 x 81 x 5 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
The icon in the piano room, 2016
Tin and marker on canvas
35.63 x 23.82 x 1.38 inches
90.5 x 60.5 x 3.5 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
The city, 2016
Copper, poster and tin and marker on canvas
51.77 x 29.13 x 2.36 inches
131.5 x 74 x 6 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
First Exercise, 2016
Tin and marker on canvas
17.52 x 71.26 x 27.76 inches
44.5 x 181 x 70.5 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Like Jacob ́s Dream Vision, 2016
Tin and marker on canvas
35.51 x 24.02 x 1.38 inches
90.2 x 61 x 3.5 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Artist name
Title of work in italics
Year
Materials, materials, materials
Dimensions inches
Dimensions cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
The Last, 2016
Copper, lead and poster.
3.54 x 14.96 x 12.01 inches
9 x 38 x 30.5 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
one is enough, 2016
Extruded polystyrene, aluminum, copper, poster and glass lacquer.
59.84 x 35.31 x 12.2 inches
152 x 89.7 x 31 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Music Stand 3, 2016
Iron, enamel, glass lacquer and marker 27.56 x 15.98 x 15.35 inches
70 x 40.6 x 39 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Music Stand 2, 2016
Iron, enamel, glass lacquer, tin and inkjet print.
70.87 x 70.87 x 1.5 inches
180 x 180 x 3.8 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Music Stand 2, 2016
Iron, enamel, glass lacquer, tin and inkjet print.
70.87 x 70.87 x 1.5 inches
180 x 180 x 3.8 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Music Stand 1, 2016
Iron, enamel, glass lacquer and marker
65.35 x 23.03 x 22.05 inches
166 x 58.5 x 56 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Music Stand 5, 2016
Iron, aluminum, enamel glass lacquer and poster
59.84 x 23.23 x 19.29 inches
152 x 59 x 49 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Music Stand 5, 2016
Iron, aluminum, enamel glass lacquer and poster
59.84 x 23.23 x 19.29 inches
152 x 59 x 49 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Music Stand 5, 2016
Iron, aluminum, enamel glass lacquer and poster
59.84 x 23.23 x 19.29 inches
152 x 59 x 49 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Music Stand 4, 2016
Iron, tin, wooden beads, enamel and marker.
64.17 x 24.41 x 17.13 inches
163 x 62 x 43.5 cm

House of Gaga ❧ Loyalties

Josef Strau
Music Stand 4, 2016
Iron, tin, wooden beads, enamel and marker.
64.17 x 24.41 x 17.13 inches
163 x 62 x 43.5 cm

Recording

Play

Marina Rosenfeld, “Manners/Duck Soup, in several parts, with restored memory of interruptions and rehearsal” (House of Gaga, Mexico City, January 2016), solo piano and turntable with dub plate, with excerpts from Francois Couperin’s XIIIème Ordre, with sculptures by Josef Strau. A performance to follow “The metaphysical Store’s continuation with dressrehearsal, virginity, manners (sous les Dominos verts)” (Secession, Vienna, April 2015).