Galerie b2

On a poster in the exhibition titled ARA, Tina Schulz quotes Belgian Surrealist Henri Michaux with a short text from the book "From the Land of Magic" (1940). In it Michaux depicts from the perspective of the narrative I, a conversation between himself whilst a visitor to the Land of Magic, and the owner of a birdcage, from which the loud screeches of locked-away parrots can be heard. But no birds can be seen. What to do, when the element of meaning is missing? How much agreement is necessary for a common language to function? What and how much can be left out? And where does new meaning begin? Included in the exhibition is the video work "Untitled (Hand Catching Lead Without Lead)." As a remake of the video "Hand Catching Lead" (1971) by Richard Serra, Tina Schulz deconstructs the meaning of the original – a hand grabbing out to catch falling lead –by simply omitting the lead. What remains after transposing the original, is – like a memory – the gesture, the camera setting and the moving image. This radical reduction generates new meaning.
A mural of graphite dust transforms the cited poster caption by Michaux into an abstract image. The lines of the text appear as negative forms on the wall – the blocks of text are empty forms: lacking content, language becomes visual as formal rhythm. A further work consists of eight wooden frames coated in anti-rust primer leaning against the wall. They appear as constituent elements of a formal vocabulary that may be endowed with content and/or meaning in connection with the other works in the exhibition. Tina Schulz challenges the viewer. She questions us as to the degree of commitment we are prepared to invest in the contemplation of art, as well as how much art needs to contribute to its own becoming comprehensible. Furthermore, she investigates the reliability of our senses and our ability to imagine as motors driving the way we look at and respond to art.