Albrecht Schäfer
10 Sep - 22 Oct 2011
ALBRECHT SCHÄFER
At The Moment
10 September - 22 October 2011
The experience of the moment and its diverse aspects are in the centre of the exhibition at the moment. Albrecht Schäfer focuses in an extensive light installation, a projection and paintings on this short time unit and makes it tangible for the spectator.
In the entrance area the exhibition shows the moment initially as a frozen still image in the work Objektiv. With a reversed objective the inside of the projector, the small technical detail of a glow wire, is projected as a motif onto the wall. The instrument turns into the motif and its own light source is turned inside out. The objective resembles an eye that allows the glance inside at the same time.
In contrast to that literal blinks of an eye influence the lighting in the room in the exhibition’s main installation. On a monitor one can see the artist himself in a close-up of his face. The only perceptible movement is the blinking of his eyes. This moment is transformed simultaneously onto the light sources in the room and therefore the light of the exhibition room is flickering with every blink of the artist’s eyes in the video. As an uncontrolled and unconscious reflex the blinking is revealed in the installation with the title Augenblick as a short disappearance of the visible environment.
The moment when the paint is blurred on the paper is the subject of a series of acrylic paintings titled Scheibenwischer. As a painting device – which functionally resembles the blinking of the eye - Albrecht Schäfer uses a customary windscreen wiper that is mounted onto the painting table. What is similar to a single big brush stroke is limited in size and style by the condition of the instrument. The sign we know from everyday experience, when the windscreen wiper of the car leaves bows on the windows only to blur them again, turns into an abstract pictorial trace.
Albrecht Schäfer’s work deals with the observation of every day situations and their transformation into art works through simple processes of appropriation that are generated by each situation. This is a concern that the poet Francis Ponge realises in his collections of texts in his use of language. These texts have accompanied Albrecht Schäfer for a long time. In The pine wood notebook Ponge describes a certain part of a forest in diverse fragments of perception and different moods that are worded anew in every moment of observation. Like with the blink of the eyes a series of always new impressions is created in which alternately the object and then again the writing about the object is the priority. One of these kept moments Ihre Anordnung bestimmte diese Bäume, bei Lebzeiten Totholz zu schaffen. Ihre Anordnung, bei Lebzeiten Totholz zu schaffen, bestimmte diese Bäume ... (their order determined these trees to create dead wood while alive. Their order to create dead wood while alive determined these trees ...) is used by Albrecht Schäfer as the title of a further work in the exhibition. In a line, which can also be read as a footnote to the whole exhibition, cubes made of pine wood with letters on them hang from the ceiling. Whereas the subjects of the other works of the exhibition are moments of perception and movement this work refers to moments of reflection of a past experience.
At The Moment
10 September - 22 October 2011
The experience of the moment and its diverse aspects are in the centre of the exhibition at the moment. Albrecht Schäfer focuses in an extensive light installation, a projection and paintings on this short time unit and makes it tangible for the spectator.
In the entrance area the exhibition shows the moment initially as a frozen still image in the work Objektiv. With a reversed objective the inside of the projector, the small technical detail of a glow wire, is projected as a motif onto the wall. The instrument turns into the motif and its own light source is turned inside out. The objective resembles an eye that allows the glance inside at the same time.
In contrast to that literal blinks of an eye influence the lighting in the room in the exhibition’s main installation. On a monitor one can see the artist himself in a close-up of his face. The only perceptible movement is the blinking of his eyes. This moment is transformed simultaneously onto the light sources in the room and therefore the light of the exhibition room is flickering with every blink of the artist’s eyes in the video. As an uncontrolled and unconscious reflex the blinking is revealed in the installation with the title Augenblick as a short disappearance of the visible environment.
The moment when the paint is blurred on the paper is the subject of a series of acrylic paintings titled Scheibenwischer. As a painting device – which functionally resembles the blinking of the eye - Albrecht Schäfer uses a customary windscreen wiper that is mounted onto the painting table. What is similar to a single big brush stroke is limited in size and style by the condition of the instrument. The sign we know from everyday experience, when the windscreen wiper of the car leaves bows on the windows only to blur them again, turns into an abstract pictorial trace.
Albrecht Schäfer’s work deals with the observation of every day situations and their transformation into art works through simple processes of appropriation that are generated by each situation. This is a concern that the poet Francis Ponge realises in his collections of texts in his use of language. These texts have accompanied Albrecht Schäfer for a long time. In The pine wood notebook Ponge describes a certain part of a forest in diverse fragments of perception and different moods that are worded anew in every moment of observation. Like with the blink of the eyes a series of always new impressions is created in which alternately the object and then again the writing about the object is the priority. One of these kept moments Ihre Anordnung bestimmte diese Bäume, bei Lebzeiten Totholz zu schaffen. Ihre Anordnung, bei Lebzeiten Totholz zu schaffen, bestimmte diese Bäume ... (their order determined these trees to create dead wood while alive. Their order to create dead wood while alive determined these trees ...) is used by Albrecht Schäfer as the title of a further work in the exhibition. In a line, which can also be read as a footnote to the whole exhibition, cubes made of pine wood with letters on them hang from the ceiling. Whereas the subjects of the other works of the exhibition are moments of perception and movement this work refers to moments of reflection of a past experience.