Passage
20 Nov 2010 - 28 Jan 2011
© Jörg Gelbke
Peine 214, 2010
Gelatineabgüsse eines Stahlträgers in der Erde vergraben und anschließend in Stahl gegossen
Holzkisten, Gusseisen
je 38 x 110 x 25 cm
Peine 214, 2010
Gelatineabgüsse eines Stahlträgers in der Erde vergraben und anschließend in Stahl gegossen
Holzkisten, Gusseisen
je 38 x 110 x 25 cm
PASSAGE
Enrico Bach, Samantha Bohatsch, Jörg Gelbke, Una Kim, Max Leiß, Tomomi Morishima, Tommy Wonka, Waldemar Zimbelmann
20.11.2010 - 28.01.2011
We are pleased to present the group show "Passage", featuring work by eight young artists, who are currently studying or graduating in fine arts at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe. The meaning of the term `passage ́ – as in transit, crossing, segment or excerpt – refers simultaneously to the artistic perspective and positioning of these artists, as to the structure of their specific artistic works. In the media of watercolour/drawing, painting and sculpture various stages of traverse are described, and interspaces and parallel worlds are constructed. Abstract, fictive or concrete pictorial space, as found in the spatial situations of the installations that are shown here approach an ephemeral sense of space: Spatial connections that are suggested, created or undermined in the artistic work – and that function as connecting paths between the past, the actual, and the possible.
Sculptures by Jörg Gelbke (*1974) deal with the overlapping presence and absence of space, time and form. Gelbke brings together actual spatial situations and past - sometimes fictive - conditions, which he places in the exhibition room as casts of possible spatial structures and temporal processes. A free-standing block cast in wax shows the imprint of a basement window on one side, while on the front side the structure of a wall is visible – the kind of stone wall that is a section of the gallery room behind the block, but as a negative cast, referring to a non-existent interspace. Retaining structures while enabling the visibility of material changes caused by the passage of time is realised in Gelbke ́s re-shaping of two double-T-beams. Primary casts were made of the beams and buried in wooden boxes for six months, weathering caused material deterioration, and the beams were recast in iron with these traces.
Phantasmagorias unfurl in Waldemar Zimbelmann ́s (*1984) paintings and drawings. Permeated by a circular motion, along which the composition of his visual worlds is constructed, Zimbelmann ́s surreal narrations evolve fragmentarily through overlapping temporal and spatial layers. Heads with displaced facial expressions belonging to various characters are visible, shifting between a psychological inward and outward, and interior and outdoor settings. The undermining of, and departure from a continual space-time constellation is also evident in the texture of the work: The crumpled and roughened surface of the paper expands the pictorial space with a factual depth, which communicates to the viewer through the materiality of the picture – and captures the sketch-like aspect of the work as a material signature.
Una Kim (*1986) makes the combination, detachment and interaction of colour pigments and paper the subject of her work: In a nearly alchemical process she investigates the capacities and limits of drawing and image surface, causing organic-anorganic structures to develop in her works. The usually extensively applied brush-strokes flow into delicately differentiated and overlapping colour gradients, in which pigments cluster and scatter – not only to finally merge together in a choreography of abstractly amorphous figures, buildings and landscapes.
Tomomi Morishima (*1984) creates pictures that refer beyond the medium of painting: In a conception of pictorial space that circles between negative and positive, his paintings verge on photographic image pools, from which surrealistically concrete spaces emerge through a process of cross-fading. Morishima works to an equal degree with colour planes and blank gaps, his compositions derive from strong contrasts, clear lines and colour planes that flow into one another. His paintings shift between sober construction and organic progression - they reveal a panorama that combines landscape and architecture, captured and retained in a state of transition.
The surreal and the utopian are subjects which Tommy Wonka (*1979) deals with in his objects. His objects synonymously take the places of architectural and human bodies, the artist addresses their consistency, brittleness and ambivalence in his sculptures. Wonka ́s objects often function as displays, for example as representatives for his own body, by alienating familiar shapes the interdependency of subject and object, and their relationship with one another is highlighted. The cast of a hand, segmented into pieces and coated with gold foil, the doubled mirror image, or a series of blank papers hanging from a wooden structure, transporting only its origin: Tommy Wonka ́s objects show moments of irritation, caused by, and filled with the pronunciation of a familiar but alienated formal language.
Samantha Bohatsch (*1984) shapes memories of locations in her watercolours, which she develops in a minimalistic, abstracted formal language as the shading of the remembered: As a reaction to and echo of her expeditions to Görlitz and Broadstairs, Bohatsch sketches the experienced and remembered fragments of rooms, objects and events in almost translucent layers of colour in this collection of pictures. Contours, geometrical shapes, or prismatic colour fields become traces, shadowy outlines and substitutes: Images take on the place of terms, along which narrative layers of space develop, intertwining reification and dream.
The pictorial space within Enrico Bach ́s (*1980) paintings is space in progress: Composed of fragments, outlines and colour fields, his pictures arise from a motion of merging, simultaneously capturing movement, developing as a pulsing montage in pictorial space, developing beyond it. His paintings are constellations that derive their subjects from spatial situations, objects and moments of transgression. Enrico Bach paints in layers and fields, compartmentalizing the image surface and subject by introducing geometric shapes and pixelated excerpts. Bachs paintings are open, yet resist concretion – the move in a state between figuration and abstraction, and tie into imaginary spaces from which they derive with their constant fluctuation.
Max Leiß (*1982) creates objects that are based on a transfer of form and space: The artist generates a formal language of various media, in part from found and modified objects, and develops his work from these while juxtaposing them. The creation of shape becomes a process, while the visibility of traces and the reference to an “aesthetic relic” functions as a part of this process. A reference point for the fireclay sculpture that Leiß poured into the room, for example, is a paper collage that the artist formed by cutting out image and language surfaces, which is a basis for the physical object as a sort of construction plan. The octagonal, segmented sculpture from found and manipulated metal refers to the exterior space of the gallery. It traces space and a process of shaping, mirroring the exhibition space as a minimalistic, abstracted figure.
Enrico Bach, Samantha Bohatsch, Jörg Gelbke, Una Kim, Max Leiß, Tomomi Morishima, Tommy Wonka, Waldemar Zimbelmann
20.11.2010 - 28.01.2011
We are pleased to present the group show "Passage", featuring work by eight young artists, who are currently studying or graduating in fine arts at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe. The meaning of the term `passage ́ – as in transit, crossing, segment or excerpt – refers simultaneously to the artistic perspective and positioning of these artists, as to the structure of their specific artistic works. In the media of watercolour/drawing, painting and sculpture various stages of traverse are described, and interspaces and parallel worlds are constructed. Abstract, fictive or concrete pictorial space, as found in the spatial situations of the installations that are shown here approach an ephemeral sense of space: Spatial connections that are suggested, created or undermined in the artistic work – and that function as connecting paths between the past, the actual, and the possible.
Sculptures by Jörg Gelbke (*1974) deal with the overlapping presence and absence of space, time and form. Gelbke brings together actual spatial situations and past - sometimes fictive - conditions, which he places in the exhibition room as casts of possible spatial structures and temporal processes. A free-standing block cast in wax shows the imprint of a basement window on one side, while on the front side the structure of a wall is visible – the kind of stone wall that is a section of the gallery room behind the block, but as a negative cast, referring to a non-existent interspace. Retaining structures while enabling the visibility of material changes caused by the passage of time is realised in Gelbke ́s re-shaping of two double-T-beams. Primary casts were made of the beams and buried in wooden boxes for six months, weathering caused material deterioration, and the beams were recast in iron with these traces.
Phantasmagorias unfurl in Waldemar Zimbelmann ́s (*1984) paintings and drawings. Permeated by a circular motion, along which the composition of his visual worlds is constructed, Zimbelmann ́s surreal narrations evolve fragmentarily through overlapping temporal and spatial layers. Heads with displaced facial expressions belonging to various characters are visible, shifting between a psychological inward and outward, and interior and outdoor settings. The undermining of, and departure from a continual space-time constellation is also evident in the texture of the work: The crumpled and roughened surface of the paper expands the pictorial space with a factual depth, which communicates to the viewer through the materiality of the picture – and captures the sketch-like aspect of the work as a material signature.
Una Kim (*1986) makes the combination, detachment and interaction of colour pigments and paper the subject of her work: In a nearly alchemical process she investigates the capacities and limits of drawing and image surface, causing organic-anorganic structures to develop in her works. The usually extensively applied brush-strokes flow into delicately differentiated and overlapping colour gradients, in which pigments cluster and scatter – not only to finally merge together in a choreography of abstractly amorphous figures, buildings and landscapes.
Tomomi Morishima (*1984) creates pictures that refer beyond the medium of painting: In a conception of pictorial space that circles between negative and positive, his paintings verge on photographic image pools, from which surrealistically concrete spaces emerge through a process of cross-fading. Morishima works to an equal degree with colour planes and blank gaps, his compositions derive from strong contrasts, clear lines and colour planes that flow into one another. His paintings shift between sober construction and organic progression - they reveal a panorama that combines landscape and architecture, captured and retained in a state of transition.
The surreal and the utopian are subjects which Tommy Wonka (*1979) deals with in his objects. His objects synonymously take the places of architectural and human bodies, the artist addresses their consistency, brittleness and ambivalence in his sculptures. Wonka ́s objects often function as displays, for example as representatives for his own body, by alienating familiar shapes the interdependency of subject and object, and their relationship with one another is highlighted. The cast of a hand, segmented into pieces and coated with gold foil, the doubled mirror image, or a series of blank papers hanging from a wooden structure, transporting only its origin: Tommy Wonka ́s objects show moments of irritation, caused by, and filled with the pronunciation of a familiar but alienated formal language.
Samantha Bohatsch (*1984) shapes memories of locations in her watercolours, which she develops in a minimalistic, abstracted formal language as the shading of the remembered: As a reaction to and echo of her expeditions to Görlitz and Broadstairs, Bohatsch sketches the experienced and remembered fragments of rooms, objects and events in almost translucent layers of colour in this collection of pictures. Contours, geometrical shapes, or prismatic colour fields become traces, shadowy outlines and substitutes: Images take on the place of terms, along which narrative layers of space develop, intertwining reification and dream.
The pictorial space within Enrico Bach ́s (*1980) paintings is space in progress: Composed of fragments, outlines and colour fields, his pictures arise from a motion of merging, simultaneously capturing movement, developing as a pulsing montage in pictorial space, developing beyond it. His paintings are constellations that derive their subjects from spatial situations, objects and moments of transgression. Enrico Bach paints in layers and fields, compartmentalizing the image surface and subject by introducing geometric shapes and pixelated excerpts. Bachs paintings are open, yet resist concretion – the move in a state between figuration and abstraction, and tie into imaginary spaces from which they derive with their constant fluctuation.
Max Leiß (*1982) creates objects that are based on a transfer of form and space: The artist generates a formal language of various media, in part from found and modified objects, and develops his work from these while juxtaposing them. The creation of shape becomes a process, while the visibility of traces and the reference to an “aesthetic relic” functions as a part of this process. A reference point for the fireclay sculpture that Leiß poured into the room, for example, is a paper collage that the artist formed by cutting out image and language surfaces, which is a basis for the physical object as a sort of construction plan. The octagonal, segmented sculpture from found and manipulated metal refers to the exterior space of the gallery. It traces space and a process of shaping, mirroring the exhibition space as a minimalistic, abstracted figure.