The Object As Image
Donnerstag, 06. Oktober 2011 - 19:00 Uhr
Ve.Sch Schikanedergasse
This exhibition describes a way of seeing particular to a group of artists whose work offers an understanding of physical space as conceptually constructed image. Drawing from industrial and domestic objects, furniture, photographs and architectural space, these artists present work where objecthood is posited as an image of itself within space and articulates a perceptive depth where haptic memory of surface and materiality fall short of fully describing the core sensibilities of the art object. These works are meditations on the possibilities of the
object-as-image; a moment when the presence of an object no longer serves function and representation but instead offers itself as a vision of abstraction.
Artists:
Johann Arens
Frauke Dannert
Marita Fraser
Alex Lawler
Jim Prevert
The films of Johann Arens explore the physicality of film and the cinematic qualities of hypothetical sculptural situations. These situations might not describe sculpture’s theatrical treatment of us within physical space, but rather describe physical dialogues within the constructed theatre of cinematic space.
Frauke Dannert works with representations of architectural space. Her collage work reconstitutes the image qualities of architectural structures in order to build a new architecture of imagined space.
Marita Fraser’s work takes objects from the real worlds such as scarves, printed fabric and uses them to stand in as painting. Paintings are then displayed as sculptural objects, freestanding on frames in space or leaning against the wall. The sides and backs of the painting stretchers are considered, highlighting the objecthood of painting.
Alex Lawler sources a wide range of materials, assembling them to form cohesive fields simulating the serene, sublime or hysterical facades of nature. His conceptual concerns also include investigations into the speculative, functional, sensual and didactic possibilities of painting.
James Prevett’s specific selection and assemblage of forms speaks of a desire to arrest the familiar functional value of known objects.
Despite this, the anthropomorphic tendencies of Prevett’s forms speak of an underlying confidence toward an autonomous drive of fluidity and movement. These forms therefore, present themselves as an image whilst seeming only moments away from being liberated out of their inert state.