Press Release, 28 April
2011
“ ___”
Temporarily Invisible
Alicja Kwade, Matthias
Meyer and Wolfgang Plöger
29 April to 5 June 2011
The exhibition “___”
Temporarily Invisible revolves
around the presence of the absent and ephemeral. The works on view direct the
viewer’s gaze to the non-existent, intangible, parenthetical and
invisible. “In the process, the artists avail themselves of fundamental
strategies of the 1960s such as Minimal Art and Concept Art. As a result, their
works bear a clear relationship to artistic concepts represented in our
collection in examples by Carl Andre or Reiner Ruthenbeck, or in the
Gonzalez-Torres presentation which just recently ended”, explains Bernd
Reiss, curator of the exhibition at the MMK Zollamt.
In the works of Alicja Kwade (b. 1979), perceptual
deception and changes of meaning, perplexity and the questioning of the
self-evident play a central role. She conveys them by shifting and altering
material and form, or by transforming objects suggestive of luxury and
flawlessness. Her work “Watch (Chen,
Wolfgang, Martin...)”, 2010 is a clock whose reflecting
surface prevents the viewer from reading the time. Only the humming of the
electric clockwork can be perceived. Ultimately, however, the invisibility of
time intensifies its acoustic and emotional perception. Another work by Kwade
consists of two barrelfuls of finely ground champagne bottles. The glittery
heap of green-and-white powder is entitled “1979 Liters to the Beginning, 2010”, the
artist’s year of birth having determined the amount of material. Here she
uses the associative connection between champagne and luxury to allegorize the
amassment of wealth and luxury in a very poetic manner with the pulverization
of glass. Her third contribution, “Teleportation
(Candle”), 2010, consisting
of a glass folding screen and three candles, is about perplexity. Through
reflection and change of perspective, the beholder has the impression that the
burning candle’s flame physically traverses the space.
Matthias Meyer (b. 1972) is
likewise represented in the show with several works. His installation “Saved from Fire”, 2007/2008, is
based on the science-fiction film Fahrenheit
451 (1966) by French director François Truffaut. The film tells the story of a city which
prohibits its inhabitants from reading and owning books. The function of the
fire department is to find books and burn them. For his installation, Matthias
Meyer assembled all of the books referred to and burnt in the film and lined
them up on three bookshelves; it is as though they have been saved through
space and time. The visibility of the books contrasts with the paintings in
Meyer’s cinematic work “The Black Museum”,
2006. The film grants a look behind the scenes at the Louvre, and
insight into an exhibition installation there. All of the paintings from the
museum collection, however, have been blackened out. On the one hand, they thus
become projection surfaces for the viewer’s imagination; on the other
hand, by concealing what constitutes their core value, they heighten their
claim to autonomy.
The artist Wolfgang Plöger (b. 1971) is concerned
primarily with processes of perception and how they can be depicted. His
cinematic installation “Take It to the
Nation”, 2011, shows a flickering surface of letters in which
it is very difficult to discern words and sentences. The film material consists
of handwritten texts – not just any texts, but the final statements of
people who have been sentenced to death. Their last written characters do not
join to form the desired messages, however, but remain indeterminate. In
Plöger’s work “The Dark Side of
the Ligh”t, 2007/2011, the sculptures materialize the
incidence of light and the shadows cast by the crate on which they stand. They
thus preserve the ephemeral and impalpable for eternity.
The exhibition “___”
Temporarily Invisible is being realized with support from
the Jürgen Ponto-Stiftung zur Förderung junger Künstler. The
Jürgen Ponto-Stiftung zur Förderung junger Künstler supports the entire MMK
Zollamt exhibition programme.
Press
photos can be downloaded on
our website www.mmk-frankfurt.de
Press
contact:
Christina Henneke
Telephone +49 (0)69 - 212 377 61
Daniela Denninger, Karen Knoll
Telephone +49 (0)69 - 212 358 44
Fax +49 (0)69 - 212 378 82
presse.mmk@stadt-frankfurt.de
