CUT!
29 Apr - 02 Jun 2012
Dominique Müller, Rising Birds #30, 2011, wallpaper and 5' videoprojection, 101 x 134 cm
Sandra Kühne, Untitled (Antarktis), 2011, papercut, approx. 120 x 160 cm
Sandra Kühne, Untitled (Antarktis), 2011, papercut, approx. 120 x 160 cm
CUT!
Schauplatz #2 with Sandra Kühne and Dominque Müller
Curated by Esther Spycher
29 April – 2 June 2012
The cut in its physical act as well as in its quality of interrupting an ongoing time-flow is the initial idea behind the exhibition CUT!, curated by Esther Spycher and featuring works by Sandra Kühne and Dominique Müller at SCHAU ORT Gallery. A cut can be understood as an incision, a sudden change in the course of events or in perception and experience. In its spatial meaning, a cut describes the cutting away of something; it can also describe a cut-out or an insection. Cuts often occur abruptly and change a perspective from one moment to the next. Or they present themselves as a frozen piece of time. In that case, they focus on a singular moment, which can be regarded more thoroughly because it has been cut away from its context.
Sandra Kühne works with atlases and geographical maps, amongst other things, and changes these into a kind of «cartography of blanks». By means of selected incisions and extractions she reworks these graphic illustrations – which are also an accumulation of spatio-temporal information – and changes the system of cartographic indication. The maps and the depicted world become a world-skeleton; a structure built onto a grid of longitudes and latitudes, of lines encompassing blank areas and white patches that evolves into an abstract space of imagination. The cutouts from the cartographical structure refer to our conception of the world and transfer the visible, measurable, and known continents into the spheres of memory and supposition. The three-dimensional installation of these map-skeletons in an exhibition space frees the lines from their known boundaries and presents them with the possibility to independently transform into new and unknown landscapes. Apart from these works on paper, Kühne will also show drawings and texts she has reprocessed with a knife. These works, which are about linearity and eliminating or omitting content, present a novel and surprising interpretation of the shown subject.
Photography as the bearer of memory plays a central role in the works of Dominique Müller. Above all it is the album of family photographs that is often confronted with high expectations to meet this requirement. Can it not but fail this expectancy? Memory is, after all, not a frozen image or a fixed moment in time, but a process in a constant state of flux. Memories evolve together with the person trying to preserve these. Nevertheless the desire remains to capture a static picture of the past, which can display a piece of bygone reality or which can even assist to keep it alive in the present of the one remembering. And yet, such documents are often strangely detached from the real moments of experience, cut out of a chronological course of events and for this reason unreal. A memory always lies in the past. Does the possibility to keep it up-to-date even exist? Dominique Müller’s photographs and charcoal drawings broach the issue of these questions. They investigate the discrepancy of photography as the bearer of memory, in that the motifs are actually film stills and thus extracted from a time flow. The conscious selection of the moment, the cut or the halting of movement illustrates the dynamics inherent in our process of memory. The images, which resemble a vague outline or (white) blotch more than a tangible form, trigger different moments of remembrance in each observer. At the same time, they question the expectations we have of photography as depiction of memory and the connected possibility of transmitting it to following generations. In addition to these photographs and drawings, Müller will also present his video Rising Birds #30, in which he reworks found historic film material into a poetic reinterpretation.
Schauplatz #2 with Sandra Kühne and Dominque Müller
Curated by Esther Spycher
29 April – 2 June 2012
The cut in its physical act as well as in its quality of interrupting an ongoing time-flow is the initial idea behind the exhibition CUT!, curated by Esther Spycher and featuring works by Sandra Kühne and Dominique Müller at SCHAU ORT Gallery. A cut can be understood as an incision, a sudden change in the course of events or in perception and experience. In its spatial meaning, a cut describes the cutting away of something; it can also describe a cut-out or an insection. Cuts often occur abruptly and change a perspective from one moment to the next. Or they present themselves as a frozen piece of time. In that case, they focus on a singular moment, which can be regarded more thoroughly because it has been cut away from its context.
Sandra Kühne works with atlases and geographical maps, amongst other things, and changes these into a kind of «cartography of blanks». By means of selected incisions and extractions she reworks these graphic illustrations – which are also an accumulation of spatio-temporal information – and changes the system of cartographic indication. The maps and the depicted world become a world-skeleton; a structure built onto a grid of longitudes and latitudes, of lines encompassing blank areas and white patches that evolves into an abstract space of imagination. The cutouts from the cartographical structure refer to our conception of the world and transfer the visible, measurable, and known continents into the spheres of memory and supposition. The three-dimensional installation of these map-skeletons in an exhibition space frees the lines from their known boundaries and presents them with the possibility to independently transform into new and unknown landscapes. Apart from these works on paper, Kühne will also show drawings and texts she has reprocessed with a knife. These works, which are about linearity and eliminating or omitting content, present a novel and surprising interpretation of the shown subject.
Photography as the bearer of memory plays a central role in the works of Dominique Müller. Above all it is the album of family photographs that is often confronted with high expectations to meet this requirement. Can it not but fail this expectancy? Memory is, after all, not a frozen image or a fixed moment in time, but a process in a constant state of flux. Memories evolve together with the person trying to preserve these. Nevertheless the desire remains to capture a static picture of the past, which can display a piece of bygone reality or which can even assist to keep it alive in the present of the one remembering. And yet, such documents are often strangely detached from the real moments of experience, cut out of a chronological course of events and for this reason unreal. A memory always lies in the past. Does the possibility to keep it up-to-date even exist? Dominique Müller’s photographs and charcoal drawings broach the issue of these questions. They investigate the discrepancy of photography as the bearer of memory, in that the motifs are actually film stills and thus extracted from a time flow. The conscious selection of the moment, the cut or the halting of movement illustrates the dynamics inherent in our process of memory. The images, which resemble a vague outline or (white) blotch more than a tangible form, trigger different moments of remembrance in each observer. At the same time, they question the expectations we have of photography as depiction of memory and the connected possibility of transmitting it to following generations. In addition to these photographs and drawings, Müller will also present his video Rising Birds #30, in which he reworks found historic film material into a poetic reinterpretation.