carlier | gebauer presents the first major solo exhibition by Ernesto Caivano (*1972) in Europe. The New York-based draughtsman and sculptor has created a highly complex parallel universe, lifting narrative and aesthetic elements from it and presenting these in groups of works. In an approach that combines human culture, the natural sciences, science fiction and hi-tech, Caivano experiments with technological and biological complexes, with the contrast between humans and nature. He narrates tales from an alternative modern creation story and in so doing asks questions about our perception of social structures and history, of topics ranging from gender issues to bioethics and technology. The perfection of the drawings is reminiscent of Albrecht Dürer and their characteristic narrative style recalls Japanese ink drawings; the sculptures alternate between prehistoric objects that seem to stem from another realm and inorganic items from a technoid science fiction culture. The works all have a code in common that identifies them as part of a fantastic evolution.
The exhibition encompasses large-format drawings, glass sculptures and computer-generated 3D-objects. The drawings and objects evoke references ranging from minimalists such as Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly to the architectonic avant-garde of the Bauhaus and Frank Lloyd Wright. Caivano’s current works focus on minimal art and abstraction, rediscovering works from these two pieces in his own artworks. In the process Ernesto Caivano points out new references his own oeuvre makes to art history and operates within an overarching system of references, which lays out the pathways of historical developments in architecture, history, design and technology and brings together their contradictions as a unified whole in his experimental evolution. Caivano´s work describes the possible structures of a post-historical world through the prism of his alternative history of creation.
Ernesto Caivano took part in the 2004 Whitney Biennale in New York. In the same year he also had a comprehensive solo exhibition in P.S.1, New York, and his works were on display there in 2005 as part of the “Greater New York” exhibition. His works have been shown in exhibitions reviewing contemporary works on paper in “On Line” at the Louisiana Museum for Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark and in “The compulsive line: Etching 1900 to now” at MoMA, New York.