THE ART OF RECOLLECTING

T H E A R T O F R E C O L L E C T I N G
7 February – 21 May 2018

Including works by Norbert Bisky, John Bock, Andrea Bowers, Birgit Brenner, Birgit Dieker, Martin Groß, Gregor Hildebrandt, Rebecca Horn, Thomas Kiesewetter, Jonathan Meese & Herbert Volkmann, Bastian Muhr, Marcel Odenbach, Daniel Richter, Stefan Vogel, Amelie von Wulffen.

Repetition and transformation are fundamental artistic principles. Creative ideas are always developed on the basis of preexisting notions or otherwise through the observation, perception and reflection of the visible world. The translation of form and content is not merely a reproductive, but an active and structuring process and as such an essential part of any creative production. The term »recollecting« refers to the process of remembrance, which occurs in gathering and rearranging ideas and motifs from memory.

The exhibition curated by Anka Ziefer presents a selection of artistic positions from the Hildebrand collection, which explore individual and collective memory or reflect on the interrelations between remembered places, the human mind and emotional states. A monumental head painted by Norbert Bisky (»Malandro«, 2017) introduces into the exhibition and remains somewhere on the edge between fiction, a flight into oblivion and a retreat into the innermost self.

Plato stated that all learning is recollection and that the pure recording of knowledge (in writing) can never replace the act of remembering. Aristotle argued that recollection does not mean the presence of information inside the memory in terms of a copy, but rather a form of becoming aware of the decisive factor of temporal difference between subject and object. One could say that it demands a »living«, human memory and a certain amount of distance to bring knowledge to life, to reflect on it, to process and develop it. If one understands memory as a collection of reminiscences, then art can be said to operate as a reservoir of complex ideas and relations which need to be activated by the observer in order to unfold.

Thought means reflection and as such is related to the tracing of memory. Many of the works presented in the exhibition share an element of continued processing of used or found materials, which in result are brought into a new form of artificiality. US American artist Andrea Bowers used discarded cardboard as support material in her work »Papillon Monarque« (2014) which is covered in black marker writings of the slogan »Education Not Deportation«. In her artistic practice Bowers taps into memories to bring them back to mind and preserve them in awareness. Her work thus merges history, the present and the future with insight and knowledge.

Marcel Odenbach uses coloured news clippings and paper scraps for his large format collages (»Abgelegt und Aufgehangen«, 2013), while Amelie von Wulffen arranges personal photographs through painting and drawing into new structures of space and thought. In Stefan Vogel’s »Ach - Sowieso -- Genau ---« (2016) photocopies and paper fragments under a mesh of yarn build a web of connections and memories. Thomas Kiesewetter recycles scrap metal and old plate for his sculpture »Blue Violet« (2008) and John Bock combines various materials – including wrappings and small everyday objects, such as cotton buds or cocktail skewers – into miniature assemblages reminiscent of cabinets of curiosities.

Rebecca Horn’s butterfly (»Schmetterling«, 2006) flaps its shimmering wings in a constant mechanical rhythm to the soft whirr of the motor that drives it. As an animate apparatus occupying the interstice of nature and technology, it illustrates the metamorphosis from life to death: since antiquity, the butterfly has symbolised the migratory soul (psyche). The artist has created a fragile yet powerful and poetic image, that blends ideas of transformation, resurrection, conservation, immortality and eros into a dense expression.

All the works in the exhibition are technically refined and yet display the principle of human error, which bears the potential for further development and diversity. So does Bastian Muhr in drawing webbed lines in repetitive rhythm. While his drawings do adhere to the principle of repetition, it is their subtle variation that creates an impression of oscillation. One might conclude that each of the artworks reflect the references and relations imprinted on them, in other words conveying their origin and thus representing in this manner a substrate of the human processes of recollection.

T H E A R T O F R E C O L L E C T I N G
7 February – 21 May 2018
G2 Kunsthalle, Dittrichring 13, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
Opening hours, guided tours. admission & press information: www.g2-leipzig.de