Taiyo Onorato & Nico Krebs (Swiss, both b. 1979) work collaboratively in photography, video and installation. Their work responds with humor and wit to various traditions of modernism: rational architecture, documentary photography and transcendent abstraction. By pecking at such “constructions,” the artists reveal a more whimsical, ironic and subjective modernism—a modernism that has at once visibly failed yet also shows signs of vigorous renewal.
” The exhibition by Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs, The One- Eyed Thief, at the Contemporary Arts Center, might be seen as the starting point for this exploration of photography in dialogue. The Swiss artists’ work delves into a dialogue with modernism itself, dissecting—and imitating, satirizing, celebrating—such icons as modernist buildings, theAmerican road trip, even photography as a quintessentially modern artistic medium. The artists also place their photographs in relation to other art forms: film, sculpture, sound art and installation, fostering a dialogue between media. Not to mention the obvious: the two artists work in collaboration, a most essential dialogue. ” – Kevin More
