Vitrine Bermondsey Square is delighted to present a solo exhibition of Berlin based artist Michael John Whelan. For this exhibition, Only in looks at Vitrine’s unique 16-metre window space as a place to re-address associations to objects, and to freeze an image/object in time.

The origin for this work is a double page magazine advert from 1984 for the American Jeep vehicle, enlarged in scale, the image has been altered to the dimensions of the vitrine itself, presenting only a section of the advert. Becoming an object itself, outside its initial purpose 30 years ago, it is now a form of meta image.

The image contains coded signifiers that can lead to many meanings, from the commodification of the romantic to structures within image psychology: the idealistic painterly scarlet sunset; the vehicle, a proponent of modernism, sitting quietly like a silent animal; the man, full of youth and vitality, alone, looking at the yellow orb across the land before him; the land, denoting the future, his future or perhaps ours. He stands at once a like a modern day cowboy who has subdued his mechanical beast, and as Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, and similarly as historian John Lewis Gaddis writes, the images is “suggesting at once mastery over a landscape and the insignificance of the individual within it. We see no face, so it’s impossible to know whether the prospect facing the young man is exhilarating, or terrifying, or both.” All this bathed in the all encompassing (perhaps artificially created) illumination from the sun.

Michael John Whelan (b. 1977, Dublin, Ireland) Lives and works in Berlin, Germany. Having studied a BA in Fine Art at IADT-DL, Dublin 2002, he graduated with an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London in 2004. He was the recipient of the Clifford Chance/University of the Arts Sculpture Award in 2005. He has work is in a number of public and private collections including the University of the Arts Collection and the MLP Collection. Solo exhibitions include; Lupus, Grey Noise, Dubai, (2014), Foreign Sunrise, Boetzelger Nispen Gallery, Amsterdam, (2012), The sun shone on nothing new, Lismore Castle Arts, St. Carthage Hall, Lismore, Ireland, (2013), A Petite Fair with Boetzelear|Nispen, Amsterdam, (2013), Understanding Magnetism, Grey Noise, Dubai, (2012), The Birth and Death of Stars, Boetzelaer|Nispen, London, (2012), Under the receding wave, Kunstverein Bochum, Bochum, (2009), Dirt. Geometry, Reimann le Bègue Galerie, Düsseldorf, (2008). Group exhibitions include; The Language of Human Consciousness, Athr Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, (2014), Notes from the Field, Margaret Lawrence Gallery, Australia, (2014), Unseen Fair Amsterdam with Boetzelaer|Nispen Gallery, Amsterdam, (2014), Ghost Towns – Utopia – Architecture - Presented by Julia Stoschek Collection and KAI 10, Arthena Foundation, Abraham Building, Neuss, (2014), Past, Favourite, Recent, Boetzelaer|Nispen, Amsterdam, (2014), Art Dubai with Grey Noise, Dubai, (2013), LISTE 18 with Grey Noise, Dubai, (2013), Art DUbai with Grey Noise, Dubai, (2013) Backwards into Paradise, Flood, DUblin, (2013), Amsterdam Drawing 2012 with Boetzelaer|Nispen, Amsterdam, (2012), Bis hier- 50 Jahre Kunstverein Bochum, Museum Bochum, (2012), Performing Transition, Klasma Theatre, Helsinki, (2012), vaa.u.um, Grey Noise, Dubai, (2012), Kunstfest Spiele Herrenhausen, Hannover, Germany, (2012), Artissima 18 with Grey Noise, Dubai, (2011), Taste my photons, Noorderlicht Gallery, Groningen, The Netherlands, (2011), Cinematic, Kunstverein Bremerhaven, Tilsiter Lichtspiele Cinema, Berlin, (2010), Where Gravity Makes You Float, Grimmuseum, Berlin, (2010), Equinox part 1: Speederbike primitive, Grimmuseum, Berlin, (2010), Equinox part 2: Highlight what you love, Grimmuseum, Berlin, (2010), Compound, Space Delawab, Belfast, (2009), Trace, The Arts Gallery, London, (2007), In Flagranti II: Schnittstellen von Fotografie, Video und Malerei, Dortmund Kunstverein, Dortmund, Germany, (2007), In Flagranti I: Schnittstellen von Fotografie, Video und Malerei, Dortmund Kunstverein, Dortmund, Germany, (2006), Field, Contemporary Art Projects, London, UK, (2005) and Bathers, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin, (2005). He has had two books published: The sun shone on the nothing new, 44 Pages, published by Grey Noise/Lismore Castle Arts (2013) and Red Sky Morning, 144 Pages, published by Argobooks, Berlin (2009) and has accepted a residency at TAJ Residency & SKE Projects, Bangalore, India, (2015).

Amanda Abi Khalil (b.1985, Lebanon) is an independent curator based in Beirut who studied art meditation, sociology and anthropology of art, graduating with an MA in Curating Art for Public Spaces at Sorbonne University in Paris, France. She has worked in various institutions across France and was given the position of director and curator of The HANGAR art space in Beirut until 2012 where she curated numerous exhibitions and installation with emerging and established artists. She is the founder and director of Temporary Art Platform, an association based in Beirut for the production and promotion of art practices in public space. Recent projects include; Simple Past, Perfect Futures, Images in countershot, Cenquatre, Paris, Intangible experiences, arrangements and manoeuvres, Greynoise, Dubai, Egchi Memeg; sour tits and other displacements, French Institute Beirut and Raed Yassin: Postponed Noon, VITRINE Bermondsey Square (2013). Khalil also teaches art history and sociology of arts at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA) and at the Saint Joseph University (USJ) and is a public art consultant for several institutions.