Spring exhibition program

Patrick Ostrowsky: unkultiviert
March 19–April 29, 2021

“You don´t know how wonderful dirt is.”
James Joyce, from a conversation with Siegfried Giedion

The condition of the built environment reflects our society. The way we treat it says much about our desires, visions and ambitions. Architecture and urban design stand in an ongoing relationship with external influences and factors that define a certain epoch. The traces time and mankind leave behind are not always so easy to recognize, however: Something an inattentive eye might dismiss as a ruin or an abandoned plot may actually say a great deal about the condition and history of a place, and perhaps even foretell its future. How might such signs be made clearer, in order to thematize the material appearance of an epoch?

One possible approach lies in the artistic practices at the intersection of various disciplines, where the confrontation of different methods can contribute to productive and unexpected results. In the works by Patrick Ostrowsky the relationship between the artistic process and the surrounding space stands central, so that the resulting works are situated at the intersection between architecture and sculpture. An exploration of Ostrowsky’s works reveals not only a specific creative process inspired by the built environment, but also a method of representation that concentrates on the material aspect of places: remains, fragments and ruins. For this reason, Ostrowsky’s works may be appreciated not only for their compositional features, but also for their descriptive characteristics, as snapshots of a certain period in time.

Thus, the sculptures and wall pieces reflect the place from where they originated. Objects and fragments found on site are at once components of the works and time capsules, which contain and preserve the traces of an epoch. The resulting compositions create a reconfiguration of the place that conveys and reveals its spirit. This approach to sculpture and material is to be understood as a reaction to the notion of static perfection of the built environment and as an experimental examination of existing spatial situations.

Exhibition text by Elettra Carnelli
Read more / Online viewing room

 

We Melt Before It Forms: Mark Corfield-Moore, Judith Goddard, Jeschkelanger, Caro Jost, Ma Qiusha, Anita Witek
curated by Joseph Constable
May 7–June 17, 2021

“No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin… Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize and define it?” Marcel Proust

“Why is it that all that tirelessly occurs in front of us, that functions in such an effective way and is also obvious, remains unseen?” François Jullien

We melt before it forms appears through a series of intimate recollections: words whispered, images captured, remnants recorded, histories distorted. The exhibition begins from the question of how fugitive memories are constituted through form and the significance of material traces and fragments within acts of remembering, making and transforming. Like the madeleine crumbs floating to the surface of Proust’s teacup, or the silent transformations that invisibly occur over time and confront us out of nowhere, sensory recollections are often accompanied by a certain temporal anxiety.

Inspired by Proust’s ‘madeleine moment’ and philosopher François Jullien’s writings on time and change, the exhibition considers the ways in which the past accumulates within the present, how spaces become charged by overlapping layers of time, and how memory can at any moment pierce through into our consciousness as new instances of interiority. By presenting practitioners working with design, textile, photography, film and installation, memory is rendered as a transformative process: a series of infiltrating movements - rising and falling, melting and forming.

Text by Joseph Constable

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The exhibitions are supported by Neustart Kultur and Stiftung Kunstfonds.