Mariechen Danz
Knot in Arrow
16 Feb - 30 Mar 2025
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
Photo credit: Mariechen Danz, Knot In Arrow, Kunstverein Arnsberg, photocredit: Michel Ptasinski
The solo exhibition Knot in Arrow by Mariechen Danz focuses on the underlying principles of human knowledge and language systems.
Can arrows reach their target if they contain knots? How exactly are directions in our ideas guided by reason or, on the contrary, have they become ‘knotted’ over time? Mariechen Danz‘s artistic worlds emerge as magical places where what we see and hear is questioned and the boundaries of our knowledge are expanded.
Very close to the Wedinghausen Monastery, which played an important role in medieval book print and distribution with its scriptorium, the exhibition at Kunstverein Arnsberg reflects on the current permeability and opacity of current and past, alternative and subaltern formats of knowledge transfer across time and space.
In the five exhibition rooms of the Kunstverein Arnsberg, Danz stages various forms of records, ranging from ‘learning cubes’ to books and templates from the tech industry that enable data transfer. The wooden cubes (simultaneously tools and seats) refer to the ABC building blocks familiar from early education. Instead of letters in primary colours, their sides are covered with symbols: body parts, anatomical representations, grammatical signs, gestures, diagrams, lines, arrows, imprints and markings.
In a workshop on the subject of ‘unlearning’, she develops new elements together with schoolchildren (aged 8 - 10) from Norbertus Primary School (Arnsberg), which are integrated directly into the exhibition.
Mariechen Danz also integrates new digital wall collages that use a trompe-l‘oeil effect to transport viewers to other architectural places of knowledge, such as a historical anatomy room, the Arnsberg town archives or medieval monk paintings in the Scriptorium. The white cube of the Kunstverein Arnsberg is thus also partially tainted and the various sculptural objects are placed in a concrete context of knowledge transfer. Danz‘s series Unlearning Books brings together casts of central media of knowledge storage in Europe - written language and book printing - making them transparent and upsetting the hegemony of the Latin alphabet. In her performances, which can be seen on monitors (including Knot in Arrow: Ideographic Insulation (Haus der Kunst, 2018), these illegible sign systems are reactivated.
The work Open Book: Vessel Veins is exemplary of her combination of historical sources with contemporary form. Like the hardcover of an oversized book, the work stands as a sculpture in the room. The outlines of an identical pictogram are printed on Plexiglas pages: a kneeling figure in profile, borrowed from Mesoamerican codices. These placeholders are filled with anatomical muscle studies from the European Renaissance, diagrams of human organ functions from Persia, depictions of nerve pathways from traditional Chinese medicine and historical chakra models from India. Different and competing models of the human body can thus be experienced in their simultaneity and knowledge about the body is shown to be relational, fragmented and historically conditioned.
Assembled like overlapping book pages, the punched and engraved aluminium cover of the sculpture Methods of Inscription: bodies ink, on which digital print, paint, blood and saliva have been drawn, stands monumentally in the space. These ‘pages’ deal with the violent inscription of rationalised knowledge systems into the human body. The body appears here as an object of the thirst for knowledge and the will to conquer in the modern age, just like the territories and creatures of the so-called ‘New World’ from which the examples of body representations originate.
MARIECHEN DANZ studied at the University of the Arts, Berlin, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam and received her Master in Art & Integrated Media from CalArts, California Institute of the Arts, USA in 2008. Her work has been shown in institutions such as the Berlinische Galerie, Istanbul Biennale; La Biennale di Venezia; Haus der Kunst Munich; MAK Vienna; Centre Pompidou Paris; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Highline New York; New Museum New York. Danz has received several prizes and scholarships, including the Villa Romana Prize and the GASAG Prize of the Berlinische Galerie.
For further information and press material, please contact: carolauehlken@gmail.com
The solo exhibition Knot in Arrow by Mariechen Danz is funded by the Kunststiftung NRW.
Curated by Pauline Doutreluingne
Can arrows reach their target if they contain knots? How exactly are directions in our ideas guided by reason or, on the contrary, have they become ‘knotted’ over time? Mariechen Danz‘s artistic worlds emerge as magical places where what we see and hear is questioned and the boundaries of our knowledge are expanded.
Very close to the Wedinghausen Monastery, which played an important role in medieval book print and distribution with its scriptorium, the exhibition at Kunstverein Arnsberg reflects on the current permeability and opacity of current and past, alternative and subaltern formats of knowledge transfer across time and space.
In the five exhibition rooms of the Kunstverein Arnsberg, Danz stages various forms of records, ranging from ‘learning cubes’ to books and templates from the tech industry that enable data transfer. The wooden cubes (simultaneously tools and seats) refer to the ABC building blocks familiar from early education. Instead of letters in primary colours, their sides are covered with symbols: body parts, anatomical representations, grammatical signs, gestures, diagrams, lines, arrows, imprints and markings.
In a workshop on the subject of ‘unlearning’, she develops new elements together with schoolchildren (aged 8 - 10) from Norbertus Primary School (Arnsberg), which are integrated directly into the exhibition.
Mariechen Danz also integrates new digital wall collages that use a trompe-l‘oeil effect to transport viewers to other architectural places of knowledge, such as a historical anatomy room, the Arnsberg town archives or medieval monk paintings in the Scriptorium. The white cube of the Kunstverein Arnsberg is thus also partially tainted and the various sculptural objects are placed in a concrete context of knowledge transfer. Danz‘s series Unlearning Books brings together casts of central media of knowledge storage in Europe - written language and book printing - making them transparent and upsetting the hegemony of the Latin alphabet. In her performances, which can be seen on monitors (including Knot in Arrow: Ideographic Insulation (Haus der Kunst, 2018), these illegible sign systems are reactivated.
The work Open Book: Vessel Veins is exemplary of her combination of historical sources with contemporary form. Like the hardcover of an oversized book, the work stands as a sculpture in the room. The outlines of an identical pictogram are printed on Plexiglas pages: a kneeling figure in profile, borrowed from Mesoamerican codices. These placeholders are filled with anatomical muscle studies from the European Renaissance, diagrams of human organ functions from Persia, depictions of nerve pathways from traditional Chinese medicine and historical chakra models from India. Different and competing models of the human body can thus be experienced in their simultaneity and knowledge about the body is shown to be relational, fragmented and historically conditioned.
Assembled like overlapping book pages, the punched and engraved aluminium cover of the sculpture Methods of Inscription: bodies ink, on which digital print, paint, blood and saliva have been drawn, stands monumentally in the space. These ‘pages’ deal with the violent inscription of rationalised knowledge systems into the human body. The body appears here as an object of the thirst for knowledge and the will to conquer in the modern age, just like the territories and creatures of the so-called ‘New World’ from which the examples of body representations originate.
MARIECHEN DANZ studied at the University of the Arts, Berlin, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam and received her Master in Art & Integrated Media from CalArts, California Institute of the Arts, USA in 2008. Her work has been shown in institutions such as the Berlinische Galerie, Istanbul Biennale; La Biennale di Venezia; Haus der Kunst Munich; MAK Vienna; Centre Pompidou Paris; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Highline New York; New Museum New York. Danz has received several prizes and scholarships, including the Villa Romana Prize and the GASAG Prize of the Berlinische Galerie.
For further information and press material, please contact: carolauehlken@gmail.com
The solo exhibition Knot in Arrow by Mariechen Danz is funded by the Kunststiftung NRW.
Curated by Pauline Doutreluingne