Karin Sander
03 Apr - 23 May 2009
KARIN SANDER
Exhibition 3 April - 23 May, 2009
Karin Sander's work is multi-layered, multi-faceted, and yet distinctive. Inspired by the surrounding environment, site-specific situations, intricate themes, and precise questioning, ?she develops ideas and then carefully delegates the task of carrying them out to assistants, scientists, technicians, equipment, or machines. For the viewer, the results are surprising, revealing an unusual perspective of previously familiar things.
Her works show interventions in given situations, or else delineate subtle alterations: ?a chicken?s egg in the exhibition Leiblicher Logos is polished until its shell reflects everything surrounding it, or visitors to the ZEIGEN exhibiton can read the names of the artists on the otherwise blank walls of the gallery, and then call up the audio pieces by these artists on an audio tour. In listening to the pieces, the viewer imagines images that are not physically present, but nevertheless there.
A group of works, known as the Gebrauchsbilder, consists of standardized canvases in store-bought sizes, painted with a white ground, which the collector hangs in a selected place, which probably does not provide the right conditions for its preservation?such as a kitchen, a cellar, ?a garage, a taxi, or a ship. Unprotected, the work remains there for a certain period of time. ?The collector determines how long it will remain, and as it hangs there, the image takes on and reproduces the patina of its environment. This process, in which the canvas absorbs its surroundings, can go on indefinitely or be interrupted at some point.
Our second exhibition of Sander?s works will feature her new series, Mailed Paintings. Here, the artist continues to expand the process of creating the painting. Once again using commercially available canvases prepared with a white ground, she sends them to the exhibition either through the mails or by courier. Without using any protective packaging, Sander mails the different formats from her studio in Berlin or from other cities and countries where she might be staying during the preparation of the exhibition such as New York, Alexandria, Sydney, Zurich, Bergen, Madrid, or Sharjah/Dubai?to the gallery in Munich.
On the way, the blank, white surfaces collect the marks of handling and transportation: dark corners, reddish-brown smears, black abrasions, small gouges, labels, and colors that have rubbed off of other things are engraved on the canvases, documenting the routes they have taken and illustrating the journeys they have made.
Exhibition 3 April - 23 May, 2009
Karin Sander's work is multi-layered, multi-faceted, and yet distinctive. Inspired by the surrounding environment, site-specific situations, intricate themes, and precise questioning, ?she develops ideas and then carefully delegates the task of carrying them out to assistants, scientists, technicians, equipment, or machines. For the viewer, the results are surprising, revealing an unusual perspective of previously familiar things.
Her works show interventions in given situations, or else delineate subtle alterations: ?a chicken?s egg in the exhibition Leiblicher Logos is polished until its shell reflects everything surrounding it, or visitors to the ZEIGEN exhibiton can read the names of the artists on the otherwise blank walls of the gallery, and then call up the audio pieces by these artists on an audio tour. In listening to the pieces, the viewer imagines images that are not physically present, but nevertheless there.
A group of works, known as the Gebrauchsbilder, consists of standardized canvases in store-bought sizes, painted with a white ground, which the collector hangs in a selected place, which probably does not provide the right conditions for its preservation?such as a kitchen, a cellar, ?a garage, a taxi, or a ship. Unprotected, the work remains there for a certain period of time. ?The collector determines how long it will remain, and as it hangs there, the image takes on and reproduces the patina of its environment. This process, in which the canvas absorbs its surroundings, can go on indefinitely or be interrupted at some point.
Our second exhibition of Sander?s works will feature her new series, Mailed Paintings. Here, the artist continues to expand the process of creating the painting. Once again using commercially available canvases prepared with a white ground, she sends them to the exhibition either through the mails or by courier. Without using any protective packaging, Sander mails the different formats from her studio in Berlin or from other cities and countries where she might be staying during the preparation of the exhibition such as New York, Alexandria, Sydney, Zurich, Bergen, Madrid, or Sharjah/Dubai?to the gallery in Munich.
On the way, the blank, white surfaces collect the marks of handling and transportation: dark corners, reddish-brown smears, black abrasions, small gouges, labels, and colors that have rubbed off of other things are engraved on the canvases, documenting the routes they have taken and illustrating the journeys they have made.