PRESENTATION: Delphine Reist-OL [oil, olio, huile], Part II

In her context-related installations and videos, Delphine Reist reflects on the modern, engineered environment between function and dysfunction, humanity and paranoia. She addresses the failure of social ideas and desires, creating the image of a parallel world hidden in the abysses of this failure. Another theme of Delphine Reist is the relationship between surveillance, control and their opposites freedom and anarchy. For her presentation she draws on forms of Pop and Minimal Art and uses a cool, sober language that turns the symbols of power, technical progress and social prosperity into absurdity (Part II).

By EfiMichalarou
Photo: Museum Tinguely Archive

Delphine Reist;s solo exhibition “OL [oil, olio, huile]” focusses on her artistic engagement with the theme of work. With her kinetic sculptures and large-scale installations, Reist explores the ways work structures the lives of individuals and of society as a whole. She also presents several works that feature oil and its fascinating fluid, viscous qualities, exploring its roles as a lubricant, a painting medium, and not least as an energy source. The exhibition includes both re­ installations of works from the period 2007-2022 and seven new works made specifically for the show. In her works, objects take on a life of their own: suddenly noisy drills, leaky printers, window blinds controlled by an invisible hand. They offer their views on the movement and rhythm of production, or speak of efficiency and exhaustion. In installations made using tires, tools and buckets, the artist refers to handcraft and industrial labor – the latter, once massively relocated to low-wage countries, is now receiving renewed attention as part of discussions around overdependency on other states. In her video “Averse”, neon tubes fall one by one from the ceiling of an empty industrial space: in both real and figurative senses, the lights go out. Other works address the theme of office work. Here, it is objects of material infrastructure like color printers, window blinds in perpetual random motion, or the marks left by endlessly circling office chairs that are used to critically reflect on forms of physically and intellectually alienated labor. Reist’s breathing sports bags remind us: under neoliberal capitalism, the benefits of «fitness», «self-care» and «wellbeing» have been coopted by the world of work as means of increasing efficiency and creating resilience to burnouts. In her installation “Hui/es (2022), Reist questions the basis of our entire economy. Many red barrels stand in line. But they are not properly sealed. Drop by drop, trickles of fuel oil, motor oil, and vegetable oil run down the white wall, leaving painterly traces. At the same time, the work is an abstract portrait in oil, as the artist uses liquids with regional links: in Basel these include sunflower oil and used motor oil from helicopters. This implicit reference to a classical art genre is not the only one of its kind, another example being the above-mentioned leaky printer “Cartouches” (2020). Reist shows it to us in the form of a photograph (C-Print) – appropriately enough (for a reprographic device) in duplicate. The exhibition concludes with the installation “Plateformes” (2023), made especially for the exhibition with reference to the neighbouring open conservation workshop called Schauatelier. Inspired by the ladders and footstools used by the Museum’s restoration team, Reist created an installation in which the objects develop their own agency, spinning around the exhibition space in a never-ending dance.

Photo: Installation view Delphine Reist. OL [oil, olio, huile] at Museum Tinguely, Basel, 2023. Delphine Reist, Ressort V [spring VJ, 2023 (top, front) Delphine Reist, Waders, 2022 (bottom), Delphine Reist, Banniere [banner], 2023 (top, back), Courtesy Delphine Reist, Galerie Lange+ Pult, Galerie Laurent Godin, © Delphine Reist, Photo: 2023 Museum Tinguely, Basel; Bettina Matthiessen

Info: Curator: Dr. Sandra Beate Reimann, Museum Tinguely, Paul Sacher-Anlage 1, Basel, Switzerland, Duration: 17/10/202-14/1/2024. Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 11:00-18:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, www.tinguely.ch/