Philipp Morlock
31 Mar - 05 May 2007
PHILIPP MORLOCK
"Wo ist Inge?"
The gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by Philipp Morlock.
Philipp Morlock's sculptures do not represent human figures in a direct way, but nevertheless they are always symbols for human characters, actions and habitudes. Found objects with their particular traces of being used and their story-telling about their past function are essential to Philipp Morlocks work. Sometimes he finds objects at random, sometimes he looks for something in particular. Once he asked a gardener to sell him the broom that he was using at the time a "victim of culture" says Morlock. Within the work a "thing-metamorphosis" or a "re-invention of objects" takes place that starts to "populate the world with objects, that don ́t exist" (Klaus Theweleit). There are mostly individual sculptures and groups of works whose formal aesthetics references particular groups of people and their attidudes towards life. Very often they refer to different types of locomotion like the sculptural group of coaches, each with an unique shape and monochrom colour. They function as a replacement character for the particular perception of time and space of the past. At the same moment their very individual shape forms a type of portrait of well known personalities: Al Capone is the black coach of a bandit, Casanova is red and shows a charming swinging shape or the coaches Stan & Oliver, one characterised by concave, the other by convex shapes.Vom Fegen und Wandern (Of sweeping and hiking) are installations that symbolise the paradoxical feeling of breaking out and being trapped within a bourgeois society. Tags of popular tourism are nailed on found brooms. Photographs taken close up form an archive of these places inevitably individual and collective memory are interwoven with each other. Another group are the moped sculptures, that each bear the name of a famous horse: Lamri (King Arthur), Jolly Jumper (Lucky Luke) or Marengo (Napoleon), they are a "second body, perfumed with gas and rubber, they burn myths and longings and the two stroke engines blow freedom, adventure, heroism and self determination towards the environment." (Thomas Wagner)
The exhibition Where is Inge? shows a found, nostalgic group photo of ladies with fluffed up dresses, white aprons and a bunch of keys with a Capri Scooter in front of the gallery as an allusion to the missing person. The group of sculptures Polemiker (The Controverters) is a contrast to the alluded action. Each one consists of an original moped tank, that is fixed on a pole at different heights. They resemble sockets, but are dissolved through coloured lines that seems to be like the backbone of the single tanks. Each one becomes a character on its own but at the same time belongs to the whole group, a cluster that stands so vehemently inside the gallery. Philipp Morlock ́s sculptures deconstruct the vocabulary of human communication by bringing it out so clearly. The works stand in front of one another, as individuals and as a collective, moved and fixed, enthusiastic but perhaps slightly concerned about the whereabouts of Inge?
Philipp Morlock was born in 1974 in Pforzheim. He lives and works in Mannheim. From 1998 to 2004 he studied at Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, in the classes of Prof. Andreas Slominski and Prof. Harald Klingelhöller. He was awarded the scholarship Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and won the award "Junge Kunst Essen" (2005-06). His first solo exhibition Ich bin schon da (I am already here) was shown at the Kunsthaus Essen and a catalogue was published to accompany the show.
"Wo ist Inge?"
The gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by Philipp Morlock.
Philipp Morlock's sculptures do not represent human figures in a direct way, but nevertheless they are always symbols for human characters, actions and habitudes. Found objects with their particular traces of being used and their story-telling about their past function are essential to Philipp Morlocks work. Sometimes he finds objects at random, sometimes he looks for something in particular. Once he asked a gardener to sell him the broom that he was using at the time a "victim of culture" says Morlock. Within the work a "thing-metamorphosis" or a "re-invention of objects" takes place that starts to "populate the world with objects, that don ́t exist" (Klaus Theweleit). There are mostly individual sculptures and groups of works whose formal aesthetics references particular groups of people and their attidudes towards life. Very often they refer to different types of locomotion like the sculptural group of coaches, each with an unique shape and monochrom colour. They function as a replacement character for the particular perception of time and space of the past. At the same moment their very individual shape forms a type of portrait of well known personalities: Al Capone is the black coach of a bandit, Casanova is red and shows a charming swinging shape or the coaches Stan & Oliver, one characterised by concave, the other by convex shapes.Vom Fegen und Wandern (Of sweeping and hiking) are installations that symbolise the paradoxical feeling of breaking out and being trapped within a bourgeois society. Tags of popular tourism are nailed on found brooms. Photographs taken close up form an archive of these places inevitably individual and collective memory are interwoven with each other. Another group are the moped sculptures, that each bear the name of a famous horse: Lamri (King Arthur), Jolly Jumper (Lucky Luke) or Marengo (Napoleon), they are a "second body, perfumed with gas and rubber, they burn myths and longings and the two stroke engines blow freedom, adventure, heroism and self determination towards the environment." (Thomas Wagner)
The exhibition Where is Inge? shows a found, nostalgic group photo of ladies with fluffed up dresses, white aprons and a bunch of keys with a Capri Scooter in front of the gallery as an allusion to the missing person. The group of sculptures Polemiker (The Controverters) is a contrast to the alluded action. Each one consists of an original moped tank, that is fixed on a pole at different heights. They resemble sockets, but are dissolved through coloured lines that seems to be like the backbone of the single tanks. Each one becomes a character on its own but at the same time belongs to the whole group, a cluster that stands so vehemently inside the gallery. Philipp Morlock ́s sculptures deconstruct the vocabulary of human communication by bringing it out so clearly. The works stand in front of one another, as individuals and as a collective, moved and fixed, enthusiastic but perhaps slightly concerned about the whereabouts of Inge?
Philipp Morlock was born in 1974 in Pforzheim. He lives and works in Mannheim. From 1998 to 2004 he studied at Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, in the classes of Prof. Andreas Slominski and Prof. Harald Klingelhöller. He was awarded the scholarship Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and won the award "Junge Kunst Essen" (2005-06). His first solo exhibition Ich bin schon da (I am already here) was shown at the Kunsthaus Essen and a catalogue was published to accompany the show.