Julia Mangold: Skulptur und Zeichnung

Julia Magnold’s (b. 1966) first institutional solo-exhibition in Germany will feature a selection of recent sculptures and drawings. The works reflect the artist’s unique sense for proportional relationships and spatial concerns.

Since relocating from her birthplace Munich to Portland Oregon the artist has reduced her compositional vocabulary to a sequence of precisely arranged rectangular volumes. The delicate interplay between elements that make up Mangold’s contained sculptures is elevated by carefully calibrated dark surfaces, that render light and subtlety manipulate the experience.

From one moment to the other, monumental black monoliths change their appearance and seem almost weightless. The interplay between stark geometric volumes is not determined by mathematical or proportional systems such as the gold mean but rather the result of an intuitive process that begins with a simple outline drawing on a piece of paper.

At the heart of this exhibition lay three column-like sculptures that evolve around the identical compositional idea. However it is the interplay from side to side, from sculpture to sculpture that captivate’s the viewer as the works continuously reveal intriguing formal structures.

Berlin is also the home of one of the artist’s largest public commissions to date. A monumental sculpture at the Parliamentary offices designed by Braunfels Architects, overlooking the neighbouring historic Reichstag building. The diptych’s two elements, one set on the exterior the other on the interior of the building elevate the architectural space and describe an architectonical relationship between the public and private realm that is crucial in a government building and would otherwise have gone unnoticed.