Finissage unterm Lederhimmel

About

Unterm Lederhimmel (Ingeborg Bachmann)

When the intellect wants to control the result, banality lurks around the next corner

MARIE BIRKEDAL and GLORIA ZEIN

MARIE BIRKEDAL: I dilute my paints so much that the binder breaks down and only the pigment remains so that the color develops through evaporation and leaves behind dust-like traces, making the paintings seem evoked rather than made. My paintings embody time as a material just as much as paint and canvas. Each layer must be completely dry before the next, and there are long phases of emptiness in which seemingly nothing happens, but really everything happens. To me, the tactile haptic experience is just as valid a way of understanding being in the world as words and language. I believe that there is a code of communication and understanding that is visual and beyond language.

GLORIA ZEIN: My hands do the work, but that is meaningless for the sculpture. Something finds expression through them; I only make myself available. When the intellect wants to control the result, banality lurks around the next corner, and then the experience is destroyed. The challenge is to think nothing and to be completely in the moment. Organisms store experiences in the strangest places. A life's journey shapes posture, gait, facial features—and the shine of the hair.