work
about
text
maerpress
contact
2005
drawing:installation
mixed media on paper
3.2 x 9.3 m
Kunstverein Wilhelmshöhe, Ettlingen, DE
For an exhibition of the winners of the 2003/2004 Villa Romana prize (with Sven-Ole Frahm, Markus Vater and Jörg Wagner) at the Kunstverein Wilhelmshöhe, Ettlingen, an installation of drawings was realized that, in its very first gesture, negates the given character of the site, creating a feigned site for the hanging of a series of drawings. Across the full width of the room, measuring 31 feet, a wall of faux-marble paper is inserted before the real wall of the exhibition space, which contains several windows. Composed of several large sheets, the faux-marble wall consists of four rows of upright-format imitation marble panels laminated onto firm drawing paper; the panels are arranged such that the oblique lines of the marble’s grain form cross- or lozenge-shaped patterns across multiple panels. The grooves between the panels have been redrawn as dark lines. The resulting appearance is that of a solid stone wall. Drawings are pasted to this wall in tight superimpositions. As if posted illegally—though not on the concrete wall of an underpass or a passageway between courtyards, but rather on the wall of an Italian palazzo—the drawings present a superimposition of mainly three motifs: a handshake, the designated gesture, in socialist as much as non-socialist contexts, of agreement and solidarity; a dark moiré pattern with an empty rectangle floating above it; and a row of agave-like potted plants that resemble the muzzle flash of old-fashioned cannons. The additional color blue, used in some of the drawings, occasionally spills over and splashes onto the marble wall.