Anna Möller
04 Dec 2010 - 29 Jan 2011
Anna Möller
“Letters to (#2)”, 2010
Plexiglass pane, stainless steel corners, printed newspaper material
H 50 x T 60 x B 100 cm / H 19.7 x D 23.6 x W 39.4 in
(right) “Letters to (#3)”, 2010
Plexiglass pane, stainless steel corners, printed newspaper material
H 50 x T 60 x B 100 cm / H 19.7 x D 23.6 x W 39.4 in
(left)
“Letters to (#2)”, 2010
Plexiglass pane, stainless steel corners, printed newspaper material
H 50 x T 60 x B 100 cm / H 19.7 x D 23.6 x W 39.4 in
(right) “Letters to (#3)”, 2010
Plexiglass pane, stainless steel corners, printed newspaper material
H 50 x T 60 x B 100 cm / H 19.7 x D 23.6 x W 39.4 in
(left)
ANNA MÖLLER
I Was Taught To Just Suggest
04. 12. 2010 – 29. 01. 2011
Anna Möller’s site-specific installations seek to affect a reevaluation of the mechanisms of exhibiting and perceiving art. Her show at Galerie Cinzia Friedlaender is centered on the conflict of representation, on scrutinizing the aura that a work of art assumes as soon as it is hung on a gallery wall. Möller resists the apparatus of presentation. She resists structures that affirm and maintain the exercise of power in the relation between object and viewer.
Methodically eluding an assertion of claims, Möller instead suggests. Her works are thus not hung, but rather leaned against the wall, suspended off the lowest possible point of the wall in a 45° angle or simply placed on the ground. In addition, the light sources are fixed on the ground facing the wall, and natural light coming through the windows is manipulated with a transparent foil blocking out about fifty percent of it.
The viewer’s perception of the exhibition space is directed to the oft-ignored spacebetween wall and floor. The spotlights’ Black power cables create a clear demarcation of that space, accentuating the line between wall and floor while the rectangle of light that they project on the wall is the brightest spot in the room.
A mere depiction is, per se, impossible - a trajectory that the artist further investigates with her paper works that are placed in the niche created by the 45° angles on the plexi-glass panes. The works are based on texts and literary sources stemming from women authors like, for example, Virginia Woolf or Gertrude Stein who contemplate about the creative process itself, about finding oneself in transitional states of mind and oscillating between personal experience and its representation. The personal experience is, in turn, impossible to isolate. It is rather a complex conglomeration of influences that go into shaping one’s own output.
Procrastination and hesitation – a universal phenomenon of the creative process - are almost celebrated in some of the source material and, consequently, Möller omits the original texts entirely, and leaves the spaces the texts would have occupied empty.
Depicted on the papers are instead the artist’s remarks, notes and highlighting of certain passages, or texts on pieces of torn paper and photos she had used as bookmarks.
Rolled on top of each other and overlaid, the newspaper material allows for the images reproduced from those bookmarks to show through.
Translucency and overlays are also at the basis of the window work, developed together with Carola Wagenplast, member of the artists’ collective Jochen Schmith. Thought the papers reveal various colors and patterns, it is only white paper that was used to cover the windowpanes. With light shining through, the materiality and different grammage of the paper itself becomes evident, ranging from coated or bleached to organic.
In opposition to the material translucency of the paper works, Möller’s two small inkjet prints suggest that communication can be a rather opaque performative act. Coded gestures are broken down to their motion sequence. The momentary movements on the way to making a gesture are captured and alienated from their culturally coded meaning. With the title „Your words / I“ Möller makes a reference to Ketty La Rocca’s 1971 piece „Le Mie Parole e Tu?“ (My words and you?)- While reversing it. With these gestures, the body channels preconfigured, formulaic texts.
Anna Möller's works do not allow the viewer to see the entire picture. Omissions and layering are used to suggest at that which is beyond representation, that which eludes concretization and remains both inaccessible and universal at the same time.
Text: Hili Perlson
I Was Taught To Just Suggest
04. 12. 2010 – 29. 01. 2011
Anna Möller’s site-specific installations seek to affect a reevaluation of the mechanisms of exhibiting and perceiving art. Her show at Galerie Cinzia Friedlaender is centered on the conflict of representation, on scrutinizing the aura that a work of art assumes as soon as it is hung on a gallery wall. Möller resists the apparatus of presentation. She resists structures that affirm and maintain the exercise of power in the relation between object and viewer.
Methodically eluding an assertion of claims, Möller instead suggests. Her works are thus not hung, but rather leaned against the wall, suspended off the lowest possible point of the wall in a 45° angle or simply placed on the ground. In addition, the light sources are fixed on the ground facing the wall, and natural light coming through the windows is manipulated with a transparent foil blocking out about fifty percent of it.
The viewer’s perception of the exhibition space is directed to the oft-ignored spacebetween wall and floor. The spotlights’ Black power cables create a clear demarcation of that space, accentuating the line between wall and floor while the rectangle of light that they project on the wall is the brightest spot in the room.
A mere depiction is, per se, impossible - a trajectory that the artist further investigates with her paper works that are placed in the niche created by the 45° angles on the plexi-glass panes. The works are based on texts and literary sources stemming from women authors like, for example, Virginia Woolf or Gertrude Stein who contemplate about the creative process itself, about finding oneself in transitional states of mind and oscillating between personal experience and its representation. The personal experience is, in turn, impossible to isolate. It is rather a complex conglomeration of influences that go into shaping one’s own output.
Procrastination and hesitation – a universal phenomenon of the creative process - are almost celebrated in some of the source material and, consequently, Möller omits the original texts entirely, and leaves the spaces the texts would have occupied empty.
Depicted on the papers are instead the artist’s remarks, notes and highlighting of certain passages, or texts on pieces of torn paper and photos she had used as bookmarks.
Rolled on top of each other and overlaid, the newspaper material allows for the images reproduced from those bookmarks to show through.
Translucency and overlays are also at the basis of the window work, developed together with Carola Wagenplast, member of the artists’ collective Jochen Schmith. Thought the papers reveal various colors and patterns, it is only white paper that was used to cover the windowpanes. With light shining through, the materiality and different grammage of the paper itself becomes evident, ranging from coated or bleached to organic.
In opposition to the material translucency of the paper works, Möller’s two small inkjet prints suggest that communication can be a rather opaque performative act. Coded gestures are broken down to their motion sequence. The momentary movements on the way to making a gesture are captured and alienated from their culturally coded meaning. With the title „Your words / I“ Möller makes a reference to Ketty La Rocca’s 1971 piece „Le Mie Parole e Tu?“ (My words and you?)- While reversing it. With these gestures, the body channels preconfigured, formulaic texts.
Anna Möller's works do not allow the viewer to see the entire picture. Omissions and layering are used to suggest at that which is beyond representation, that which eludes concretization and remains both inaccessible and universal at the same time.
Text: Hili Perlson