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(FAZ, 23.08.2024)
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Wenn das Material den Künstler überrascht
Von Christoph Schütte, Auszug
(…) Freilich, ganz so spielerisch und heiter geht es dann doch nicht immer zu in der äußerst anregenden Sommerausstellung, in der Gastkurator Felix Becker fünf konzeptionell grundierte Positionen in der Galerie Heike Strelow zusammenführt. Experimentell, ergebnisoffen und konzentriert auf den Prozess zum Bild dagegen schon. Und genau das zeichnet die insofern durchaus treffend “Meristeme” überschriebene Schau aus. Dass selbst die Künstler nicht in jedem Fall auch wissen, wie sich ihre Arbeiten entwickeln.
Ömer Faruk Kaplan wählt Gips und Beton als Grund für seine zarten Zeichnungen. Yannick Riemer paust seine eigenen, von fern an Paul Klee erinnernden Papierarbeiten ab und gibt ihnen damit die Anmutung von Reproduktionen. Isabell Schulte buchstabiert das Vokabular ihrer gewaltigen Formate mit den Mitteln von Rhythmus, Variation und Wiederholung, hier großzügigen und dort verdichteten Strukturen immer neu und anders. Bei allen spielen nicht nur Themen und Motive, sondern auch besonders die Eigenschaften des gewählten Materials eine nur bedingt zu kalkulierende Hauptrolle im künstlerischen Vorgehen. Und doch sind es am Ende die Fotoarbeiten Bärbel Prauns, die den nachhaltigsten Eindruck hinterlassen.
Wobei es das im Grunde gar nicht trifft. Sicher, die 1978 in Landshut geborene Künstlerin hat Fotografie studiert, und ihre “office figures” überschriebene Serie ist genau das. Eine Folge von bescheidenen Schwarz-Weiß-Aufnahmen, wie sie Praun im eigenen Studio komponiert. Was sie zeigen aber – Leuchtstoffröhren, ein Bogen Papier vielleicht, eine über Eck gezogene Linie oder ein Stück Schaumstoff in einer Nische an der Wand –, was Praun in ihren Bildern vorführt, ist etwas, was man potentielle Bildhauerei nennen möchte. Ephemere, wie vorgefundene Skulpturen, die womöglich im nächsten Augenblick wieder verschwinden. Und niemand hat es gesehen als Praun Kleinbildkamera. Eine Entdeckung.
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text by Jonas Georg Christensen
for the book ‘office figures’, self-published in 2022
FOR THE TIME BEING
– thoughts on Bärbel Praun’s work
That a corner, or any other kind of angle, can be used to create a sensation of space, is immediately apparent. The difference – which a corner creates between one surface and another – is needed. It doesn’t just come in handy. The bottom edge of a wall with the panel reaching down to the floor can also be useful. Anything will do actually. Appropriated by the artist, small holes or even cracks in the wall create an X. A trait from which meaning can spring. The questions for a viewer then become: What is the take-away here? What can be drawn from this? Is something being said? How can this praxis be framed and what might I then end up saying about it, framing it? While it simultaneously says something (back) about me and my ways of seeing… and for this viewer’s part: Ways of giving a written response. What will happen once I interact with it? This -ness of -ish: These X’s which seem to be resistant to attempts at description coming from outside of the praxis itself. As if the praxis gives its description in itself, through the ways in which (its) formal investigations are carried out.
(...)
read the full text here
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Wenn das Material den Künstler überrascht
Von Christoph Schütte, Auszug
(…) Freilich, ganz so spielerisch und heiter geht es dann doch nicht immer zu in der äußerst anregenden Sommerausstellung, in der Gastkurator Felix Becker fünf konzeptionell grundierte Positionen in der Galerie Heike Strelow zusammenführt. Experimentell, ergebnisoffen und konzentriert auf den Prozess zum Bild dagegen schon. Und genau das zeichnet die insofern durchaus treffend “Meristeme” überschriebene Schau aus. Dass selbst die Künstler nicht in jedem Fall auch wissen, wie sich ihre Arbeiten entwickeln.
Ömer Faruk Kaplan wählt Gips und Beton als Grund für seine zarten Zeichnungen. Yannick Riemer paust seine eigenen, von fern an Paul Klee erinnernden Papierarbeiten ab und gibt ihnen damit die Anmutung von Reproduktionen. Isabell Schulte buchstabiert das Vokabular ihrer gewaltigen Formate mit den Mitteln von Rhythmus, Variation und Wiederholung, hier großzügigen und dort verdichteten Strukturen immer neu und anders. Bei allen spielen nicht nur Themen und Motive, sondern auch besonders die Eigenschaften des gewählten Materials eine nur bedingt zu kalkulierende Hauptrolle im künstlerischen Vorgehen. Und doch sind es am Ende die Fotoarbeiten Bärbel Prauns, die den nachhaltigsten Eindruck hinterlassen.
Wobei es das im Grunde gar nicht trifft. Sicher, die 1978 in Landshut geborene Künstlerin hat Fotografie studiert, und ihre “office figures” überschriebene Serie ist genau das. Eine Folge von bescheidenen Schwarz-Weiß-Aufnahmen, wie sie Praun im eigenen Studio komponiert. Was sie zeigen aber – Leuchtstoffröhren, ein Bogen Papier vielleicht, eine über Eck gezogene Linie oder ein Stück Schaumstoff in einer Nische an der Wand –, was Praun in ihren Bildern vorführt, ist etwas, was man potentielle Bildhauerei nennen möchte. Ephemere, wie vorgefundene Skulpturen, die womöglich im nächsten Augenblick wieder verschwinden. Und niemand hat es gesehen als Praun Kleinbildkamera. Eine Entdeckung.
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text by Jonas Georg Christensen
for the book ‘office figures’, self-published in 2022
FOR THE TIME BEING
– thoughts on Bärbel Praun’s work
That a corner, or any other kind of angle, can be used to create a sensation of space, is immediately apparent. The difference – which a corner creates between one surface and another – is needed. It doesn’t just come in handy. The bottom edge of a wall with the panel reaching down to the floor can also be useful. Anything will do actually. Appropriated by the artist, small holes or even cracks in the wall create an X. A trait from which meaning can spring. The questions for a viewer then become: What is the take-away here? What can be drawn from this? Is something being said? How can this praxis be framed and what might I then end up saying about it, framing it? While it simultaneously says something (back) about me and my ways of seeing… and for this viewer’s part: Ways of giving a written response. What will happen once I interact with it? This -ness of -ish: These X’s which seem to be resistant to attempts at description coming from outside of the praxis itself. As if the praxis gives its description in itself, through the ways in which (its) formal investigations are carried out.
(...)
read the full text here
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interview: 6 Questions by Tique Art
2020
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text by Paola Paleari
for the book ‘this must be the place’, self-published in 2015
(...) Her photographic practice is similar to a walk in the mountains, where she actually loves to be: an action where the breath sets the pace and the senses become more alert and alive. I imagine her while she wanders alone, watching and listening what she encounters along the path without thinking about anything else; and I guess she shoots in the same way, without expressing any judgement, without haste, but simply trusting the precision of the internal alignment between body and mind that we all possess by nature, but that asks to be activated and trained to lead to a full state of consciousness. (...)
read the full text here
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interview: I DO ART.DK
2017
'I have decided to fall silent’ is a personal statement that describes my inner struggles, shows my protest. It’s about the choices we make and the situation we are in, voluntarily or not. When writing the sentence, I stopped long before completing the sheet of paper - it felt wrong to continue. Language is an important tool for communication, orally and in writing. Within language one can apply pressure, control and power. To refuse or deny speaking out loud can imply protest, a shock or trauma. It can become a way of healing and meditation. Consciously falling silent can both mean to have lost control and to keep control.
2020
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text by Paola Paleari
for the book ‘this must be the place’, self-published in 2015
(...) Her photographic practice is similar to a walk in the mountains, where she actually loves to be: an action where the breath sets the pace and the senses become more alert and alive. I imagine her while she wanders alone, watching and listening what she encounters along the path without thinking about anything else; and I guess she shoots in the same way, without expressing any judgement, without haste, but simply trusting the precision of the internal alignment between body and mind that we all possess by nature, but that asks to be activated and trained to lead to a full state of consciousness. (...)
read the full text here
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interview: I DO ART.DK
2017
'I have decided to fall silent’ is a personal statement that describes my inner struggles, shows my protest. It’s about the choices we make and the situation we are in, voluntarily or not. When writing the sentence, I stopped long before completing the sheet of paper - it felt wrong to continue. Language is an important tool for communication, orally and in writing. Within language one can apply pressure, control and power. To refuse or deny speaking out loud can imply protest, a shock or trauma. It can become a way of healing and meditation. Consciously falling silent can both mean to have lost control and to keep control.
text by Felix Becker, for the exhibition MERISTEME, 2024
Galerie Heike Strelow, Frankfurt
curated by Felix Becker, with works by Bärbel Praun, Isabell Schulte, Ömer Faruk Kaplan, Yannick Riemer, and Sophia Domagala
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The office figures (2020) by Bärbel Praun are a series of 27 photographs that utilise the means of installation, collage, painting, drawing and sculpture to capture their subjects. For almost two years, the artist photographed in-situ installations in a temporary 15m² studio in Hamburg-Rothenburgsort. The merest traces on the bare walls of a former customs office were traced with pencil lines, materials that she brought with her or were found there were draped, strings were stretched or shapes were painted with emulsion paint. Using the medium of photography, Praun transforms these site-specific interventions into independent images in which the studio space recedes almost completely and fades into an expanded pictorial logic. Similar to a picture puzzle, the office figures switch back and forth between photographs of spatial situations, abstract paintings or drawings. The sculpted pieces display various characteristics, such as leaning, bending, floating, curving or stretching - like individual, specialised cellular bodies from the conceptual meristematic space of the studio.
image: office figures, Bärbel Praun © Galerie Heike Strelow, 2024
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video interview at artist residency Atelier Josepha 10/22 (video: Antonio Castles Gómez)
Galerie Heike Strelow, Frankfurt
curated by Felix Becker, with works by Bärbel Praun, Isabell Schulte, Ömer Faruk Kaplan, Yannick Riemer, and Sophia Domagala
The office figures (2020) by Bärbel Praun are a series of 27 photographs that utilise the means of installation, collage, painting, drawing and sculpture to capture their subjects. For almost two years, the artist photographed in-situ installations in a temporary 15m² studio in Hamburg-Rothenburgsort. The merest traces on the bare walls of a former customs office were traced with pencil lines, materials that she brought with her or were found there were draped, strings were stretched or shapes were painted with emulsion paint. Using the medium of photography, Praun transforms these site-specific interventions into independent images in which the studio space recedes almost completely and fades into an expanded pictorial logic. Similar to a picture puzzle, the office figures switch back and forth between photographs of spatial situations, abstract paintings or drawings. The sculpted pieces display various characteristics, such as leaning, bending, floating, curving or stretching - like individual, specialised cellular bodies from the conceptual meristematic space of the studio.
image: office figures, Bärbel Praun © Galerie Heike Strelow, 2024
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video interview at artist residency Atelier Josepha 10/22 (video: Antonio Castles Gómez)