L I N E A R M O M E N T U M - OPENING: 4TH OF NOVEMBER 2016, GALERIE IM KÖRNERPARK
April Gertler '9 Lives'
exhibition view by Nihad Nino Pusija
exhibition view by Nihad Nino Pusija
the delegated performance 'The Appendages' (Yellow) by Melanie Irwin surrounding 'Bumping into pleasure' (2013) by Vanessa Henn
exhibition view by Nihad Nino Pusija
exhibition view by Nihad Nino Pusija
Pia Linz, 'Körnerpark' (2013)
exhibition view by Roman Caesar
exhibition view by Roman Caesar
Vanessa Henn, 'Panorama' (2012/2016) and Sofie Thorsen, 'Tokyo March' (2009)
exhibition view by Nihad Nino Pusija
exhibition view by Nihad Nino Pusija
p.t.t.red, 'Goldener Schnitt durch Berlin' (1988-90/2016)
exhibition view by Nihad Nino Pusija
exhibition view by Nihad Nino Pusija
Melanie Irwin, 'Terminus Loop' (2013) and Simon Faithfull, '0o00 Navigation' (2009)
exhibition view by Roman Caesar
exhibition view by Roman Caesar
with
Simon Faithfull, April Gertler, Vanessa Henn, IEPE, Melanie Irwin, Pia Linz, plan b, p.t.t.red, Richard Rocholl and Sofie Thorsen
curated by Conny Becker
The exhibition runs from the 5th of November 2016 until the 22nd of January 2017
The exhibition LINEAR MOMENTUM addresses the drawn line in its relationship to our movement through space. Instead of approaching the theme through drawing, the genre traditionally associated with the line, the project incorporates performance-based works, as well as sculpture, wall drawing, photography, and video. As a connection between two points, the line always references its movement-based genesis. Thus, the exhibition approaches the line from a temporal and spatial – a performative – perspective.
In most of the works, the line appears as a visually prominent formal element, as in a bent banister or a stripe of moving light. In other works, the artists refer to existing utilitarian lines (the Berlin wall, overhead tram cables, the Greenwich Meridian) which themselves rest invisible, but determine our navigation in space and time.
April Gertler‘s work '9 Lives' forms the prelude to the exhibition, and pulls the visitor into a maelstrom of lines. The dimension and intensity of this radial work compel the viewer to relate to it with his or her own body. For her wall drawing of approximately 3,50 m by 3,50 m, the American artist uses a chalk reel and thus brings an important marking technique in construction work into the exhibition space.
In his series 'Autoland', Richard Rocholl photographed a number of old avenues around the wider Berlin area, using the manner of the classic avenue depiction. The historic country roads, however, are now intersected by the more ‘efficient’ motorways and have grown wild. This romantic aspect of the images is reinforced by Rocholl’s technical approach: He takes the images initially during daylight, but with just half the accurate exposure time, and then adds the blurred lights of vehicles at dawn. This technique results in an unreal amalgamation, created from multiple moments in time inscribing light onto one analogue photograph.
Vanessa Henn works with everyday, semi-architectural objects whose purpose is to steer human movement. For 'Bumping into Pleasure', she playfully transforms staircase bannisters into an absurd, 1960s-style labyrinth, inviting our intellect rather than our bodies to roam. Freed of their function and recontextualized in the exhibition space, Henn’s railings suddenly appear as enigmatic objects, while their everyday counterparts are usually ignored. Take, for example, the familiar safety grips in sanitary facilities: the artist transfers them to a rocky cove by blending them into an assemblage with a photograph the size of a wall.
In a very concrete way, IEPE drew into the city space during the summer of 2010. The Dutch artist let 'Painting Reality' be fulfilled by an ‘anonymous crew’ who – on bikes and equipped with tubs of paint – passed through the intersection of Rosenthaler Platz in Berlin. One by one, the paint tubs were tipped up – yellow, blue, pink and purple colour spilled onto the road at all four traffic lights in the multilaned street. The numerous passing vehicles were used by the artist to transform this busy junction into an abstract pastel drawing.
Lines, architecture, and their sociocultural references are at the centre of Sofie Thorsen’s artistic practice. In her slideshow installation, 'Tokyo March', the artist has worked with drawings by the Japanese modernist Kenkichi Yoshida from 1930–31. The drawings show the modern facades of Tokyo’s business and red light district, Ginza, which also appear in photographs that Thorsen found during her research on site. She combines the two historical image sources in monochrome slides, enabling an imaginary approximation of the buildings’ original colour. The projection of slide positives layered over one another sets the architecture in motion; one seems able to follow the contours of the drawing.
In her drawings based on lines and real places, Pia Linz creates entirely new universes. For 'Körnerpark', her method has been inextricably intertwined with movement. She first measured the selected site in footsteps in order to draft a precise map of the surface. Taking this ‘map mesh’ (Linz) as the starting point of her drawing, the artist returned to the neo-baroque garden ensemble almost daily over the next several months. In smaller, folded sections, she also noted her sensitive observations, whether visual, acoustic, or olfactory.
For their ongoing project, 'The Drawing of Our Lives', plan b (Daniel Belasco Rogers and Sophia New) have recorded every step outside of their homes since 2003 and 2007, respectively, using GPS devices. They interpret this digital data through analogue material – in the case of All Our Traces in Berlin 2011, for example, with the help of laser engraving. In this way, a set period of time and one or several corresponding places are translated into a drawing and an individual map emerges.
'Drawing machine II' is an entirely analogue drawing machine built by Belasco Rogers. Attached to his body, he can record all of his movements on paper. Whereas the GPS-based drawings tend to emphasize the necessary, everyday routes, here the artist draws a neo-Situationist dérive, an aimless wandering that leads to a fully abstract outcome.
The video work 'Terminus Loop' (Warschauer Straße) documents a public action by Melanie Irwin, who systematically paces and squats her way through the early-morning streets of Berlin, dodging oncoming traffic, in order to capture the overhead tram cables with her small camera. An existing line dictates her trajectory, and the work celebrates the body’s adaptability towards external forces, obstacles and incidences.
For the delegated performance 'The Appendages' (Yellow), ten performers will bring metal geometric frames and hoops to the exhibition opening. These objects, extracted from discarded IKEA furniture and powdercoated yellow, are carried like accessories during the event. What comes into temporary existence is a ‘large-scale, monochrome, spatiotemporal line-drawing made up of multiple disconnected sculptural fragments that rely on human bodies to transport them.’
In '0o00 Navigation', Simon Faithfull tests the Greenwich Meridian for its suitability for daily use, and follows this constructed line with GPS devices exactly north through Hampshire, London, the Midlands and Lincolnshire. The video work documents the artist’s physical journey, and is often comical when the artist, in his quest to follow the line, clambers over obstacles or crosses bodies of water.
The hypothesis to be tested in 'Going Nowhere' was ‘to witness an absence and to check whether the world still existed during this absence.’ Faithfull’s action gives cause for existential or phenomenological considerations, but also shows concrete traces of a human’s movement in space.
In Berlin, the exhibition theme inevitably evokes associations with the Berlin Wall. The separation wall compelled the Kreuzberg artist duo p.t.t.red (paint the town red) to undertake countless works, among them early interventions into the urban landscape. With their project 'Goldener Schnitt durch Berlin' (Golden Cut through Berlin), for example, artists Stefan Micheel and Hs Winkler countered the political division with an aesthetic one. In summer 1988, they first covered four steel construction elements lying in a line in the Western part of the city in gold leaf, later adding a gilded cross-piece to the Greifenhagener Bridge in the previously cut-off East in 1990. The subtle poetisation of the everyday thereby assumed a political dimension.
For LINEAR MOMENTUM, Stefan Micheel has documented the gilded support elements that, with the exception of one supporting bracket on the train bridge over the Landwehr Canal, still exist. Positioning 3D views across from a time-lapse video, he highlights not only the spatial aspect but also the temporal level of the intervention. The location-specific work of p.t.t.red has created fixed points in the urban landscape over a period of nearly 30 years.
PARALLEL PROGRAM
Opening
Friday, 4th of November 2016, 6pm
With the delegated performance 'The Appendages' (Yellow) by Melanie Irwin
Lecture-performance and book presentation
Thursday, 24th of November 2016, 7pm
The artist duo plan b talks about its ongoing project The Drawing of Our Lives – for which it is recording every walk per GPS device and creating an individual cartography.
Richard Rocholl presents his new artist book Autoland.
Guided tours with the curator
Saturday, 26th of November 2016, 5pm
Saturday, 14th of January 2017, 5pm
Finissage with concert
Saturday, 21st of January 2017, 7pm
The songs of AFTERMARS steer from romantic Synth-Pop to pounding Electro-Noise, through Metal and Acid-Jazz, with a genuine sense of urgency. Sébastien Brault / voice and keyboard, Thomas Jocher / trumpet and Tom Früchtl / guitar.
Guided tours every Sunday, 3pm
LINEAR MOMENTUM at Galerie im Körnerpark is an extended version of the exhibition at TCB art inc. in Melbourne, Australia, October 2015. The 2015 catalogue will include a new supplement featuring the five additional artists in the Berlin show.
With the friendly support of Senatskanzlei – Kulturelle Angelegenheiten, Ausstellungsfonds Kommunale Galerien, the Danish Arts Foundation, Copenhagen, and the Australian Embassy, Berlin.