Philipp Messner / Christine Moldrickx
05 Mar - 10 Apr 2010
PHILIPP MESSNER / CHRISTINE MOLDRICKX
05.03. - 10.04.2010
The correlations between Philipp Messner’s artistic quest and the methods of Neo-Conceptualism are clear and, at the same time, blurred. It is in these established but continuous oscillations that the extremely dynamic rules of his works and installations are anchored.
The materials and production processes employed by the artist allude to Minimal Art and its “industrial” aesthetics; formal grammar is reduced to elementary forms.
An element of constant de-structuring and disburdening of the picture is introduced into the visual immediateness of his works. This occurs, on the one hand, on the level of dismantling and three-dimensional re-assembling - the change of position and re-organisation of the resulting elements is also intended here. On the other hand, the use of mirroring and reflection (as in his work “Parkettierung”, 2008), which lends a perceptual and creative virtuality to the flat, two-dimensional surface, becomes an element of “putting-into-perspective”, a linking element between the piece of work, the observer and the exhibition room. The recipient’s role in this regard is a fluid one, that of an active transmitter. Without assuming any particular position beforehand, the recipients become integrated into a constantly changing relationship which determines their perception and which they, in turn, co-influence with their physical movements and intellectual projections.
The relations between Messner and the tradition of Conceptual Art are characterised by a patient and deliberate distillation of experiments which, in addition, are attributable to Kinetic Art and Arte Povera among others, and, at the same time, by an interest in applied art, design and architecture as expressions of a culture of planning which is, by means of the empirical space of the work, capable of questioning and radically changing the real and symbolic space of our experience and our beliefs.
It is the concept of mutual influence of diverse media which shapes Christine Moldrickx’s oeuvre. It is not the components of opposition that are relevant here, but rather the process of merging – that which belonged to one medium, continues within the laws of that which has been added without, however, denying its origin and its uniqueness. New, unsettling creations thus develop out of various (image-) carriers.
The works on display in Galerie Bernd Kugler can be considered as representations, the oscillatory nature of which alludes to their respective transportation into a new reality.
The pictures (“untitled”, 2008), portrays black and white photographs combined with coloured crayon and pencil drawings. The photographs show interior spaces – a room, a stairwell and a view from a room of a garden. Separated from each other by their framing, dissimilar and broken perspectives come together to create a fragmented image of a house. The visualisations, drawn on paper, are arranged within the photographs. These can be understood as gestural-pictorial abstractions of cloud-like traces which proliferate over the paper and, from an empirical-rational point of view, have no direct connection with what is depicted in the photographs. Rather, they broaden the area covered by the photographs into an imaginary pictorial space. In this way, potential correlations can be drawn up, for example when a green coloured shape overlaps the view of the garden, and the graphic movements on the paper seem to reflect the leaves on the bushes and trees outside.
Here, Moldrickx blends the heterogeneous presentation techniques - photography and abstract drawing - in overlapping and associatively complementary levels.
In small-format pictures from 2009, Christine Moldrickx uses images from the artist Sigrid Kopfermann taken from a catalogue published in 2003 to commemorate Kopfermann’s 80th birthday. The impetus behind her works was the Kopfermann-Fuhrmann endowment prize, which was awarded to Moldrickx in 2009. The slightly enlarged catalogue images were firstly transferred onto their original carrier materials - canvas and paper - by means of ink-jet printing. By doing so, they were brought closer to their original materiality. The images are brushed over with a transparent acrylic, whereby the brush strokes imitate those of the painting itself which is represented by the printed image. “Within my limited field, I was able, in a game-like way, to adopt the role of the painter for a short time, without my brush strokes actually covering over hers.” (Christine Moldrickx) The imaginative abstract and what really exists or what is being presented co-exist here in a fundamental dissimilarity. But it is precisely this discrepancy that makes one accessible within the other and vice-versa. Here too, it involves a kind of continuance under altered conditions. By means of a gap in the thought and perceptual process, this work too generates room for imagination and interpretation.
05.03. - 10.04.2010
The correlations between Philipp Messner’s artistic quest and the methods of Neo-Conceptualism are clear and, at the same time, blurred. It is in these established but continuous oscillations that the extremely dynamic rules of his works and installations are anchored.
The materials and production processes employed by the artist allude to Minimal Art and its “industrial” aesthetics; formal grammar is reduced to elementary forms.
An element of constant de-structuring and disburdening of the picture is introduced into the visual immediateness of his works. This occurs, on the one hand, on the level of dismantling and three-dimensional re-assembling - the change of position and re-organisation of the resulting elements is also intended here. On the other hand, the use of mirroring and reflection (as in his work “Parkettierung”, 2008), which lends a perceptual and creative virtuality to the flat, two-dimensional surface, becomes an element of “putting-into-perspective”, a linking element between the piece of work, the observer and the exhibition room. The recipient’s role in this regard is a fluid one, that of an active transmitter. Without assuming any particular position beforehand, the recipients become integrated into a constantly changing relationship which determines their perception and which they, in turn, co-influence with their physical movements and intellectual projections.
The relations between Messner and the tradition of Conceptual Art are characterised by a patient and deliberate distillation of experiments which, in addition, are attributable to Kinetic Art and Arte Povera among others, and, at the same time, by an interest in applied art, design and architecture as expressions of a culture of planning which is, by means of the empirical space of the work, capable of questioning and radically changing the real and symbolic space of our experience and our beliefs.
It is the concept of mutual influence of diverse media which shapes Christine Moldrickx’s oeuvre. It is not the components of opposition that are relevant here, but rather the process of merging – that which belonged to one medium, continues within the laws of that which has been added without, however, denying its origin and its uniqueness. New, unsettling creations thus develop out of various (image-) carriers.
The works on display in Galerie Bernd Kugler can be considered as representations, the oscillatory nature of which alludes to their respective transportation into a new reality.
The pictures (“untitled”, 2008), portrays black and white photographs combined with coloured crayon and pencil drawings. The photographs show interior spaces – a room, a stairwell and a view from a room of a garden. Separated from each other by their framing, dissimilar and broken perspectives come together to create a fragmented image of a house. The visualisations, drawn on paper, are arranged within the photographs. These can be understood as gestural-pictorial abstractions of cloud-like traces which proliferate over the paper and, from an empirical-rational point of view, have no direct connection with what is depicted in the photographs. Rather, they broaden the area covered by the photographs into an imaginary pictorial space. In this way, potential correlations can be drawn up, for example when a green coloured shape overlaps the view of the garden, and the graphic movements on the paper seem to reflect the leaves on the bushes and trees outside.
Here, Moldrickx blends the heterogeneous presentation techniques - photography and abstract drawing - in overlapping and associatively complementary levels.
In small-format pictures from 2009, Christine Moldrickx uses images from the artist Sigrid Kopfermann taken from a catalogue published in 2003 to commemorate Kopfermann’s 80th birthday. The impetus behind her works was the Kopfermann-Fuhrmann endowment prize, which was awarded to Moldrickx in 2009. The slightly enlarged catalogue images were firstly transferred onto their original carrier materials - canvas and paper - by means of ink-jet printing. By doing so, they were brought closer to their original materiality. The images are brushed over with a transparent acrylic, whereby the brush strokes imitate those of the painting itself which is represented by the printed image. “Within my limited field, I was able, in a game-like way, to adopt the role of the painter for a short time, without my brush strokes actually covering over hers.” (Christine Moldrickx) The imaginative abstract and what really exists or what is being presented co-exist here in a fundamental dissimilarity. But it is precisely this discrepancy that makes one accessible within the other and vice-versa. Here too, it involves a kind of continuance under altered conditions. By means of a gap in the thought and perceptual process, this work too generates room for imagination and interpretation.