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ANITA TARNUTZER
 

FOURTH WALL SIXTH PLANE ANITA TARNUTZER TEXT TO THE EXHIBITION BY MARK GISBOURNE

A complex dialectical engagement between object and space, between part and whole, between totality and fragmentation, repetition and reconstitution, and entirety and entropy, are all conceptually and materially manifested in the current sculptural project FOURTH WALL - SIXTH PLANE by the artist Anita Tarnutzer. It is not merely that the artist questions the conditions and parameters of her given concept, but that she deconstructs the many relational possibilities in far greater depth and insight than one might initially imagine is the case on seeing a classically derived formal object such as a cube. 

A three by three metre white cube (KUBUS) has been created by the artist from sheets of Zellan (powdered ceramic) with each single sheet of ceramic having printed numbers and being coloured on the inside. After the first installation at the artists’ studio space the cube was shattered with a hammer. At the second installation at a small project space in Schönhauser Allee a reconstruction took place and at the completion of the exhibition the walls were again shattered. In the current installation we have the third time that the KUBUS has been assembled over an increasingly and necessarily protracted period—some three weeks or more. From this simple conceptual premise a swathe of conceptual ideas have been thrown up, not least that of object and relational space, the cube being of such a size that it must be completely rebuilt in relation to a new space on each occasion. There is the question of extended temporality, since by now the thousands of numbered pieces means it takes much longer to install on each occasion. In this sense there is continuous aspect of a time-space development in relation to the artist’s general practice and to the project work as it evolves and eventually destabilises itself.

The numbering of the fragments and individual shards are designated to the inside of the KUBUS, as a result they present a ‘hidden visible’ that is never actually seen by the viewer but is necessarily inferred by the lengthy reassembly process. Hence the object that formed a cube in the first instance has become increasingly de-formalised, therefore immediate issues of formality and informality are put into question.

The former smooth ceramic surface is increasingly abraded and uneven brought about by the re-juxtaposed and reassembled pieces, as they have been re-glued together. 

It is this emblematic nature of the object as it gravitates from a once classical form, one where the fragments represent the conventional part to whole relationship, to an informal status where a fragment or part, has become, to quote Friedrich Schlegel “A fragment, like a miniature work of art, has to be entirely isolated from the surrounding world and be complete unto itself like a porcupine.” This sets in opposition the conventional idea of a ‘classical fragment’ with Romantic ‘fragmentation’ as well as modern psychological and aesthetic under-
standings of the part-object. The fact there is a paradoxical sense of repetition that can never be exactly reconstituted (in material-temporal terms), is yet another question that is posed by the Tarnutzer project - in what sense is reconstitution a form of repetition? At the same time the work’s entirety is never quite the same since a kind of entropy (a diminution of stability) takes place through each installed location and spatial reconstitution of her KUBUS. 

This challenging approach of concept and informal repetition runs through many of Anita Tarnutzer’s highly personal and idiosyncratic art projects. What may at first seem commonplace, becomes strangely interesting through her methods of translation and reconfiguration. Whether working with objects, video or photography, this artist creates a unique aesthetic sense of displacement, a dislocation where the puzzled viewer is made self-aware of the nature of their own puzzlement.

Mark Gisbourne

FOURTH WALL – SIXTH PLANE
Anita Tarnutzer

25 January - 22 February 2014
Opening: 24 January, 6 pm
Venue: 401contemporary, Potsdamer Straße 81 B, Berlin (Tiergarten)