November 9 - November 25, 2017
Vernissage Thursday November 9th - 19:00-21:00

Open Walls Gallery is excited to announce In Absentia, featuring new work from Berlin-based artist Vermibus. Reflecting upon contemporary dystopia, Vermibus created a new body of work contemplating the artificial nature of reality on multiple levels. Through exploration of some of the most prominent aspects of consumerism, he built a recognizable oeuvre deliberating various imposed standards, culminating with his new project entitled IN ABSENTIA.

Creating twenty-one solvent based pieces individually, Vermibus conjured up a series of work, crowned with an atmospheric video piece. IN ABSENTIA video is an autonomous work of art that focuses only on the actual truth, diverting from the documentary nature of the previous short films the artist had made. It is a brooding illustrative tale about urban life, cleared of every and any distraction, including people, alluding to a plethora of issues the citizens face daily, from visual pollution towards loneliness.

Having more than 1.520 billion passengers, the Parisian subway system served as the prime inspiration and the setting for the project. As the second busiest metro network in Europe, it is also the one with more than an average advertising pollution in comparison to other such systems in the world. All of the posters were first installed and the video was shot on the scene, inside the Metropolitan subway of Paris.

For the past six years, Vermibus has been developing his practice of appropriation and revelation intensively. He is opposing the unrealistic beauty paradigm and provides an alternative outlook. Exploring the issues of identity, consumerism and imposed beauty standards, Vermibus has been an active member of the public art scene since 2011. His background in graffiti and photography contributed to the definition of his adbusting practice, defined by a highly recognizable expression.