Arákhnê
Carola Bark
Matthias Beckmann
James Brooks
Jeongmoon Choi
Matali Crasset
Valérie Dantas Mota
Motoko Dobashi
Lionel Esteve
Etienne de Fleurieu
Corinne Laroche
Rainier Lericolais
Matthias Männer
Michaela Melián
Roland Stratmann
Christof Zwiener
Press release
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ARÁKHNÊ : de fil en aiguille dans le dessin
from March 15th to May 12th 2011
The exhibition looks at the way in which lines in different textures and material qualities create cross-genre links between drawings, sculptures and installations. Drawings have always served as an indispensable step towards conceptualisation and the creation of drafts, symbolising the very act of creating an idea and therefore manifesting an elementary part of fine art. Yet over and above this sketching function, many contemporary artists use drawings as an artistic means of expression which implies an ongoing desire to redefine and explore the limits of this medium. After all lines as the central elements of a drawing exist just as much on the two-dimensional level as they do in three-dimensional space where they function as vectors between two points and where they create a given volume. The exhibition highlights the different aspects and techniques of the medium. The broad spectrum of the positions shown, illustrates the seemingly endless variety of contemporary drawings.
The two central starting points in the work of the fine artist and musician Michaela Melián (1956) are history and topography. The exhibition will include Melián’s sewn drawings, with the basic motifs displayed through the medium of a camera. Photographs are translated into drawings, yet not by a conventional crayon or pencil, but by a sewing machine. The continuous machine-sewn thread shows the silhouettes of landscapes, buildings and streets. As the artist uses both an upper and bobbin thread, each picture has two sides. This reflects the historic heritage of many German towns and cities which often have both a visible side and a hidden side.
The drawings and paintings of Motoko Dobashi (1976) combine pictorial elements of traditional Japanese graphic arts with the old masters of European art. At the same time the artist tries to find references of form and content in modern everyday art, as borrowed from comics and street art. In her narrative, representational scenes she plays with spatial illusions that are confined to subdued colours which further enhance the magical language of her artistic language.
The recurring elements in Matthias Männer’s (1976) latest large-scale installations are black cables. Whether separately or in bunches, these black cables cling to the three-dimensional sculptures which are presented either in the middle of a room or which protrude from a wall. The black cables contrast sharply with the white surfaces of his fantasy sculptures. The three-dimensional composition of each Styrodur surface is effectively complemented by the linearity of the cables that lead either towards the ceiling or along the ground.
Carola Bark (1965) draws her grid structures both on two-dimensional surfaces and in space. Whether it is paper and board or the floor and the walls, the artist covers these surfaces with a graphic network of lines, composed of graphite, adhesive tape, thread and rubber cord. Since her "Interventions" in public space, whereby she adorned façades and advertising columns with adhesive tape from 2001 to 2004, her art has been particularly inspired by architecture as well as by music. The previously reduced colour repertoire in her lined patterns has recently been expanded to include very vivid colours.
Jeongmoon Choi (1966) works around the notions, illusions and distortions of space. For this, she uses thread which she draws through space in order to separate it and to create levels of depth. In the exhibition, she shows a new wall installation inspired by the constellations of a summer sky.
Christof Zwiener (1972) measures real and fictitious space with yarn. Using network structures and lengths of thread, he generates perspectivebased scenarios that emerge and disappear, so that they are characterised in their basic idea by Baudelaire’s “aspect of volatility”. In Threaded Lineart he will be showing a range of works in which he presents a deconstructive discussion of Fred Sandback’s graphic and threaded works.
Etienne de Fleurieu’s (1977) drawings are imbued with a subdued violence. A modern alchemist who turns dynamic violence into understated art, Fleurieu uses the explosive power of the gunshot to transcend the twodimensional medium, making it explode into the third dimension. He aims at paper with a shotgun. A close examination of his drawing reveals hundreds of bullet holes which create a visual and tactile texture; each transformed into musical notes by a delicate crochet drawing.
Matthias Beckmann (1965) draws what he sees, immediately reproducing the life before our eyes with his direct and fine line. No preparatory drawings and no corrections are necessary, which is why his work can be seen in a photographic and filmic context. For this exhibition, Beckmann especially drew his own hands, cleverly combining them with pin-pricks and thread, thus creating a further layer of depth beyond his already analytical view of our surroundings.
Roland Stratmann (1964) works around the notions of game and inferential narrative. His installations draw upon the playfulness with which the viewer will interact, and thus influence the work. In the installation ‚Stone and Floor made of Gold‘, shown 2005 at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, Stratmann references his time spent in Istanbul through the real and imaginary images of the city. The clichés that shape our visions were represented through statements made by Berlin youngsters about the Turkish metropolis. This installation was compressed into a memory block on the last day of the exhibition and is now shown.
James Brooks (1974) aims to critique the notion of the ‚non-place‘, especially in reference to ‚Super Modernity‘ by Marc Augé. The drawings in the exhibition are made through repeated piercings of a paper surface. Furthermore, the chosen surface area is taken from aerial maps of airport plans from around the world. These seemingly organic shapes, realised through just puncturing the paper, become amorphous forms lacking in definitive architectural or logical planning.
Matali Crasset (1965) is an industrial designer by training. She develops new typologies around such principles as modularity, appropriation, flexibility and networks. Her work, which established itself in the 90s as the refusal of pure form, is seen as a research in motion, fed by hypothesis more than principles. She collaborates with various and eclectic universes, from handcraft to electronic music, from the textile industry to fair trade. Her works have thus led her on paths which she did not suspect, from set design to furniture, from graphic design to interior architecture and design as artwork.
Valérie Dantas Mota (1977) is working both in digital as well as handcrafted ideas. Her practice stems from her relationship with nature and assiduously explores the correlations between the animal and human kingdoms. She seeks analogies in their constituents as well as in the way they could echo each another. For the exhibition, she especially created three collaged drawings which reference these worlds. Lines of nylon threads wrap and simultaneously bond these strange landscapes reminiscent of body parts.
Lionel Esteve (1967) works by gathering bits of material he finds and recycles. His works can be described as spatial drawings defined by colour and their impact rather than themselves. Esteve creates objects by trying to make artifacts which represent a direct link between a thought and its realization. Chance is a big factor in his work, as the artist tries not to confine himself either by technique or material. His „Pistil“ series, of which one piece is shown in the exhibition, is inspired by botanical forms but entirely derived from his imagination.
Corinne Laroche (1957) draws in graphite to discover and expand a territory. Her work draws upon reflexions of positive and negative, of emotions and repetitions. She meditates through her drawings which verge on automatic or diary works. In the exhibition, she shows a series composed of an original tracing paper drawing, four construction drawings which are transfers onto paper and one final transfer which is enhanced trough thread. It is about deposit, the mark and the residue.
Rainier Lericolais (1970) creates preferably through the use and appropriation of precarious materials. Residual images, glue and cardboard are among the ingredients which he mixes in his continuous experimentations. Through this, he ask questions about the meaning of objects, of our preconceptions and our societal paradigms. His work is about deconstruction, abstraction or figuration and fragility or stability. These ideas become imminent in the landscapes he especially created for this exhibition. Made out of glue which he applies to photographic representations, they are panoramic views of the horizon, of the meeting space between earth and sky. The glue absorbs the ink and this small poetic trace is all that remains of the panorama : a faint memory, beautiful and fragile.
The gallery would like to thank Hervé Acker, Frank Elbaz, Barbara Gross, Johan Tamer and the Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac (Victoire de Pourtales)
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