Gwenneth Boelens, Falk Haberkorn, Xylor Jane, Esther Kläs, Bernard Piffaretti, Adrian Sauer

source codes

….individual, reflection, affluenza, discipline, intellect, aura, filter, efficiency, contemplation, network, possibilities, refusal, permanence, trust, mirror, will, work, circuit, patina, flow, limitation, high & low, taste, mania, hang-out, precedent, obsession, material, be with oneself, digital, level, everyday life, image, technique, pause, speed, insecurity, nay-saying, entireness, institution, personal, ingenious, sample, publicity, virtual, pressure, expectation, concept, luck, concentration, evaluation, society, term, decoration, redeem, psyche, community, unconditional, tradition, escapism, security, economy, collage, constraint, attention, identity, charging, resonance, resist, fiction, idiosyncrasy, documentation, authentic, time, range, immerse, flash, independent, routine, standard, decision, topic, interest, retro, public, rational, grind, representation, entity, implement, dispose, persistence, unattached, politics, process, select, purpose, longing, silence, more…

A sequence of three exhibitions that has been conceived together with Alexej Meschtschanow and Ulrich Gebert, and which will accompany the gallery’s exhibition program in the course of the next 12 months.

The work of Gwenneth Boelens revolves around the analysis of the gaze. That which can be perceived or remembered is detached from its common context and translated into spatial, photographic and filmic installations. Her work often focuses on the connection between logic and subjectivity, observation and inner thought processes. Lately Boelens has worked from her fascination for the concealed character of the negative, how it precedes the photographic image, and the idea of a source image.

Falk Haberkorn examines the border between image and language, formation and formulation, photography and text. The question of how the artist can inscribe himself into the world, into history as well as into the present is crucial to and often reflected in his work. However, he does not see this artist-author as creator ex nihilo but rather as someone who stands in a certain tradition and who sustains something in a critical manner. Dealing with memory and tradition, preservation and erasure, conferment and loss is the basis on which he elaborates his scripture-images and performative site-specific works.

The paintings of Xylor Jane trace the course of time and the possibility of location in a rapidly changing environment. On the basis of mathematical numerical orders, patterns and grids she establishes a time and coordinate system from processed experiences, aspects of life and gathered impressions. Her work combines the rationality of mathematics with obsession and humor; concentration and the removal of boundaries become equally sensible here.

Esther Kläs’ sculptures and wall pieces amalgamate different production techniques and material. Her works in plaster, ceramics, resin or concrete are mostly made from very basic casting forms. In her production method Kläs incorporates the diverse possibilities that derive from the specific character of the used materials: a lack of clear definition and control are taken into account. Her works seem reduced but their direct impact and physicality opens a field of references and imagery, which gets stronger over time.

In Bernard Piffaretti’s work spontaneity and discipline, conceptual rigor and free association meet. Moreover, his work debates the ever-increasing flow of images, the question of what meaning formal decisions take and the paradox to discard something in order to resurrect it as a completely new argument. The crucial parameters in his creation process become understandable in his paintings: chronology, origin, end, incompleteness, seriality, montage, reproduction.

Adrian Sauer follows in his works the limitations of depiction in a time where (camera)pictures become more and more hybrid construction that are based on reflected meter and mathematic recalculation. In a very comprehensive way he deals with the question of ‘material’ and the possibilities of dealing with it. Sauer visualizes the phenomena of an increasingly undecipherable experience of our time and the hardly tangible differentiation of the digital that permeates our lives in all areas and levels.

The atmosphere of the exhibition evolves from the works’ aura and sincerity: they are self-sustaining. They don’t illustrate or document; no network, circle of friends, nor mediation or contextualization is necessary in order to experience or encompass them. Their red thread and crucial parameter is reflection, concentration, self-location, knowledge about a contemporary perspective, decisiveness, persistence and emotion; as well as the capacity to play with and seize the vague and unknown or to let it untouched when necessary. In their artistic approach the selected artists are very close to the core of their respective medium but open up to a dialogue about it, allowing doubts and thus point beyond their own cosmos.