2016
Neuer Kunstverein Wuppertal
“In ‘wohnen – abschreiten – sortieren’, Gather experiments with the interweaving of art projects, which he has realized in many German regions and abroad with a clear contextual reference, and the semi-public exhibition space. In a combination of “leftovers” from art events in the outdoor space and works created especially for the art space, a strangely enraptured spatial structure between staging and documentation unfolds. Things with obsolete functions are presented as partly autonomous, partly usable sculptures or as exhibition architecture. Attached works and films thematize suspended actions and beautiful but dilapidated objects.” Erik Schönenberg, Neuer Kunstverein Wuppertal
Wohnen – Abschreiten – Sortieren uses a selection of projects that I have realized over the last few years in urban and rural areas. It is an experiment to make these works visible in the art space without retelling them in a purely documentary way. Fragments of work become the vehicle for a new situation that brings together the coloring and language of past, temporary projects with more museum-like (or residential) works.
With housing, I am “embedded in the familiar in order to bring in the unusual and to be able to do the unusual. I am embedded in redundancy in order to receive sounds as information and to be able to produce information. My apartment, this network of habits, serves to catch adventures and serves as a springboard into adventure.” (Vilém Flusser, 1992)
Walking is one of my artistic modes of action: Dog walking routes (Dog Spotting, 2007/2010) are walked, movements in the apartment are mapped (Wohnzeit, 2011), landmarks are marked out on everyday paths (Dilly Daily Dishes, 2011). Walking is the “dialectic between dwelling and the unusual”, the shift that enables me to become aware of my ‘dwelling’: “Consciousness is precisely that oscillation between dwelling and the unusual, between the private and the public…” (Vilém Flusser, 1992)
Bringing the unusual into the familiar is followed by sorting as a step towards making it visible. Car spam cards (Car Spam Card Collection, 2011) or right-angled sticks (Winkel, 2016), actually “dirt” picked up from the ground, are sorted and asserted as a valuable collection. Beauty becomes visible, if only for a moment in the “well-known aesthetic cycle: ugly – beautiful – pretty ugly”.
Suction
Steel, glass, Vorwerk suction motors, hoses, approx. 90 x 400 x 80 cm, 2016
Rechtwinkler (wood, glass)
Filmstill
Exhibition view
Exhibition view