Markus Karstiess
28 Jun - 04 Aug 2012
MARKUS KARSTIESS
Mirror fall down mirror gone down'
28 June - 4 August 2012
Ancient & Modern presents Markus karstieß’s first exhibition in London with an installation of raku-fired ceramic reliefs titled ‘Mirrors’. karstieß adopts a primitive approach to gesture and modelling, using simple, simultaneous hand imprints in clay. karsteiß’s sculptures have coalesced around a kind of mesmeric memento-mori installation of vases in which specific flowers are placed to die; or whole sarcophagus-like rooms lined in clay. For ‘Mirror Fall Down Mirror Gone Down’, a title borrowed from an album by Captain Beefheart, seductive reliefs, hung like paintings, have their illusory depth and picture planes substituted for a variety of coordinated finger-and-thumb impressions contained within familiar Rorschach-like forms.
Titles, such as ‘Dark Star’ or ‘Solaris’, evoke the spirit of the cosmos while they would not be out of place within the transformative artifice of an 18th-century grotto.
karstieß (b.1971, works Düsseldorf) had a solo exhibition at krefelder kunstverein, Germany (2012) and showed in ‘Corridor Plateau ii’ at Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2011). He collaborates with musician Detlef Weinrich (Tolouse Low Trax, kreidler). From 2008-12 he curated kunstverein Schwerte, Ruhrgebiet, Germany (with Christian Freudenberger). His ‘Sculpture Garden’ was at k21, kunstsammlung nRW, Düsseldorf (2010-11).
Mirror fall down mirror gone down'
28 June - 4 August 2012
Ancient & Modern presents Markus karstieß’s first exhibition in London with an installation of raku-fired ceramic reliefs titled ‘Mirrors’. karstieß adopts a primitive approach to gesture and modelling, using simple, simultaneous hand imprints in clay. karsteiß’s sculptures have coalesced around a kind of mesmeric memento-mori installation of vases in which specific flowers are placed to die; or whole sarcophagus-like rooms lined in clay. For ‘Mirror Fall Down Mirror Gone Down’, a title borrowed from an album by Captain Beefheart, seductive reliefs, hung like paintings, have their illusory depth and picture planes substituted for a variety of coordinated finger-and-thumb impressions contained within familiar Rorschach-like forms.
Titles, such as ‘Dark Star’ or ‘Solaris’, evoke the spirit of the cosmos while they would not be out of place within the transformative artifice of an 18th-century grotto.
karstieß (b.1971, works Düsseldorf) had a solo exhibition at krefelder kunstverein, Germany (2012) and showed in ‘Corridor Plateau ii’ at Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2011). He collaborates with musician Detlef Weinrich (Tolouse Low Trax, kreidler). From 2008-12 he curated kunstverein Schwerte, Ruhrgebiet, Germany (with Christian Freudenberger). His ‘Sculpture Garden’ was at k21, kunstsammlung nRW, Düsseldorf (2010-11).