Another Dimension

About

Or also those that deal with (multi-)dimensionality, in which temporal or spatial superimpositions occur. 

Our orientation in the world usually happens through standardized units of scale, to which everything is put in relation. Similarly, the progression of time is "measured"; through calendars and clocks we come to understand the concept of past, present and future. Human physicality has long served as a measuring tool, placing the body in relation to the rest of the world. In view of standardized units of measurement and weight during industrialization and today's increasing virtual tools, this body-related fidelity to scale is slipping away more and more. Subjective and imaginary spaces can emerge without boundaries and expand the insight into and perception of other, real or fictitious, even virtual dimensions.

At the same time, human-related measurement has not disappeared; we still evaluate things "by eye", judge according to our "gut feeling", perceive indefinable periods of time such as the moment or times of boredom, judge sizes and hierarchies according to cultural imprints and our own socialization. Units of measurement and the sensations associated with them were and are therefore always subjective units. 

ANOTHER DIMENSION poses the question of stretchable definitions of dimensions, and how artists continually explore this question anew in their work. 

Stefan Alber’s STELLWERK [Signal Tower] (2021) brings together a harmonious ensemble with architectural references. The stools by the manufacturer Kartell are an interpretation of the architectural icon "Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana" in Rome, which was built to glorify the fascist regime. The table replicates the architecture of the first building on the Italian border station Brenner, which in its restrained appearance almost tries to disguise the passage of a border. Reduced in size and arranged as utilitarian furniture, the political impact of the two buildings is suspended. Alber's practice often refers to the ambivalence of iconic or neglected architectures that remain as powerless landmarks, questioning their history and social context. His new work Floating Horizon (2022) meanders through the exhibition space as a skirting board, seemingly causing the floor to overflow and the wall to float.

Detel Aurand's cross-media work is a manifesto for the fact that the spiritual and the material world, man and nature, and all existing things in general are interconnected. Much of her work takes its point of departure in phenomena of nature, such as the multi-part series common ground six-sided (2018-19), which consists of hexagonal boards and canvases containing abstract motifs and drawings in graphite, pastels, colored pencil, acrylic, and ink. The hexagon as a recurring shape both in nature (honeycombs, basalt columns, diamonds snowflakes and more), as well as in the objects that surround us in everyday life, is thematized here as a form of togetherness, as well as the literal common ground, the ground on which we all move. 

In his work Conrad combines painting and drawing, applying multifaceted, self-developed techniques to textile. He simulates organic structures with technical processes that resemble 3D printing or CNC milling. KISSCUT (2021) features traces of fossil skeleton-like structures whose imprints are residues of movements that in turn form a dialogue to engineered hybridity. Enclosed wires connect these imprints and become energetic sources. Conrad develops both organic and technical compositions that address existential themes of energy, growth, fertility, death, and consciousness, exploring how the dichotomous relationship between nature and culture can be overcome. 

Taissa Fromme's sculptures, photographs, digital paintings, and installations explore collective fantasies of and longings for a world in which the separation between individuals is erased; be it between people, between humans and animals, or between humans and nature. By appropriating different display forms, artificial and natural technologies and processes, she attempts to trace nonverbal codes that reveal our emotional collective unity and discard social categories. Soft Breed (2021) is part of an ongoing series of images that address the - sometimes idealized - aesthetics of "exotic" plants and animals; and our fundamental frustration with our own inability to ever fully understand them. 

In her works, Samira Gebhardt deals with living spaces - mental as well as physical spaces. By constructing models in different media and scales, she approaches the layers and states of these spaces, of subjective images and memories. Wohnzimmer München (I lost my memory in Hollywood) (2021) and the video Sich ereignen [To Occur] (2021) refer to Gebhardt's childhood in a row house in Munich. They initiate reflections on how the repetitive architecture with its identical division of space can affect the lives of the people living in it, their movements and routines, perhaps even their thoughts and feelings.

The multi-part work Entitled (2015) by Nik Geene demonstrates how everyday objects can be charged with emotional resonance. Depending on the perspective, context, or combination, the connotations of the miniatures alternate. The furniture, objects and electrical appliances of the adolescent world, recreated in childlike doll size, entail something uncanny: their labor-intensive production corresponds with the existing, precarious manufacturing conditions of consumer products and thus indirectly exposes economically driven power structures, which unquestioningly enter the doll house and linger there like some thoughts in the head. The domestic realm can be understood as a place of intimate unfolding, but also as a constrained cosmos that turns emotional oppression - often embedded in domestic structures - into drama. 

Rahel Goetsch works primarily with drawing and repeatedly explores the possible exit from the medium itself. In doing so, she attempts to break away from the classical carrier material of a drawing and open up a dialogue beyond what can be visually grasped. Looping Lessons III (2019) is one of a series of drawings whose beginning and end points lie outside the visible, luring the viewer's gaze out of the spotlight. The event they seem to note remains hidden, as does a possible confluence of the loop - peripheral vision is stimulated for it. In its oversized appearance, the sculpture Candy Lover (2021) likewise evokes memories of movement outside of a tangible moment. It becomes a dialogue partner of everyday existence. 

Christin Kaiser's sculptures, photographs and installations often move at the interface between clothing and architecture. In her works, she explores, among other things, the question of how architectural and urban elements can be transferred into textile, how scales and ascribed functions change as a result, and how art and architectural history can be linked to the present. In her work Berliner Gewölbe [Berlin Vault] (2022), she combines a tiled vaulted ceiling, also called “Preussische Kappendecke”, with the oversized parasol of a baseball cap. The historical architectural element from the 19th century thus meets the protective "canopy" of a modern headdress worn especially by young people in Berlin. Appropriately, the Swiss call this type of hat a "Dächlikappe [Roof cap]”.

Lucia Kempkes deals with the human fascination for nature in all its facets and with the materials and objects that enable us to spend time in nature and interact with it. A stream of thoughts to detach us from the current (2021-today) includes, among other things, a series of colored pencil drawings that - based on a Google Image search keyword "perfect place" - combine embellished depictions of landscapes or plants (in oversaturated, gaudy colors) with the reflective outdoor material Goretex. In #20, the idealized mountain landscape of an Apple screen saver meets the plastic stones of a climbing wall and a bonsai. The image thus contains three concepts of nature and at the same time depicts the human will and aspiration to get as close to it as possible.

In her paintings, Marlen Letetzki explores the transformation process of color into a representation of spatiality. She is fascinated by the tipping point when color no longer becomes visible merely as itself, but recedes behind a representation, an image. Using a variety of techniques and materials - for example, the contrasting pair of oil paint (heavy, thick, dries slowly) and watercolor (light, fluid, dries quickly) - she experiments with layers, hints, surfaces, and moods of light. Her paintings almost always have multiple visual dimensions; in them, painterly and graphic gestures blur with figurative or digital elements. At the same time, the meaning and hierarchies of what is depicted are almost entirely dissolved. 

Roman Liška’s paintings explore diverse techniques of representation, such as the appropriation and modification of existing image material or its enlargement through the process of projection. In the work Der junge Eulenspiegel präsentiert sein Hinterteil [Young Eulenspiegel presents his backside] (2021), he draws on woodcuts dated 1515 from the tale of Till Eulenspiegel, who in his mischievous pranks demonstrates wisdom and intellectual superiority at the same time by literally holding up the rear end, or "mirror," to others. The woodcuts were usually made after the original text, so that between image and text an interaction is created, which opens further interpretative perspectives of the narrative. The representation enlarged here is not only mirrored, but contains details highlighted, modified or added by the artist, thus playing a trick on the viewers themselves. In the work Wie Eulenspiegel dem Wirt auf den Tisch schiss [How Eulenspiegel shat on the table of the host] (2018), Liška also expands perspectival glimpses of the action with collaged backgrounds that stand in a puzzling relationship to the narrative itself. 

Johanna Odersky's multimedia practice closely interweaves sound, performance, drawing, and sculpture, pointing to mutually dependent relationships, rhythms, and harmonies. The paper work Heights and Depths Will Warm Me, Like the Sun (2022) resembles an endless cosmic spiral that could spin until the sun rises and sets again. However, it stands still, finding its energetic steadiness through warm light-emitting diodes, fixed by the cable rather than set in motion. It is a reference to the intervention in natural and cyclical states, which could possibly chauffeur us unbridled into other dimensions.

Felix Oehmann works playfully with sculptures and objects whose dimensions and materials break out of the common manageable form and norm and thus sometimes make their presentation almost impossible. Painkiller (2022), made of cardboard, fiberglass, epoxy, and paint, imitates a powerful, emotional expression with its uplifted arms; nothing about it seems restrained. Is it, for instance, the joy of climbing a peak, winning the painful mountain stage of the Tour de France, or a long-awaited encounter? Oehmann leaves no attempt to conceal the inner emptiness of the sculpture; it is only its shell that rears up in an oversized way - the absence of the body and the longing for harmony and love become the leitmotif of his practice. 

In her conceptual works, Sophia Pompéry directs her gaze to everyday occurrences and phenomena, both small and large, and makes visible what is special in them: a candle flame that casts no shadow; the water applied to floorboards reflecting a window shape, two yard sticks that both measure two meters and yet are different in length. At first glance, the ongoing series Little Errors (2012-present) shows ordinary squared A4 paper. Only on closer inspection do small irregularities and errors stand out; some lines are bent or torn. The "little errors" bring unrest into the usually strict lines and expose the millionfold reproduced and standardized grid of the paper as a fragile construct. 

Francis Zeischegg’s work is concerned with units of measurement, measuring instruments and scaling of spaces, and the concepts, hierarchies and categories attached to them - in public as well as in private. In her series Blickarchitekturen [Architectures of Sight], surveillance structures of various kinds merge into fictitious hybrid entities that the artist has recreated on a scale of 1:10. In doing so, she literally illuminates several points of view and potential fields of action: Those of surveillance, self-display, and voyeurism. The sculpture Self Displayer (2016), for example, combines a classical high seat with an open, nobly decorated sedan chair or pulpit. In the newly gained multidimensionality, the object becomes a metaphor of a control society in which it sometimes no longer seems clear who is actually watching whom. 

Texts / Curated by Sophia Scherer and Katharina Wendler

Project Assistance: Rio Usui

With the kind support of bEpic, Berlin