Diffusion

We are very pleased to present a group show with four artists from the gallery. The subject of the show circumnavigates loosely around the notion “diffusion”. The trigger for the title of the show is an interview by the English artist Rebecca Warren with the former director of the Kunstverein München Bart van der Heide in 2013. In this conversation Warren speaks about her sculptural practice and introduces the term “diffusion” contrasting it to the term “mirroring”. Her working practice drifts in circles; often returning to a theme and expanding it further. „Rather than mirroring I think a more accurate word for it might be diffusion. The initial impulse, or set of impulses start the process of making the sculptures. Often there is then a need to rewind or retract some of the features of this
(which of course maybe the result of something new or a refinement of something already existing). Sometimes the sculptural solution is to make a second similar form (itself then an echo or a refinement of an existing form, or something new). Lots of things happen in the process, but one of the most interesting is what happens to Time – Time has moved.“ Even these remarks are specific to the working practice of the sculptor Rebecca Warren, they can be applied to the artistic labor in general.

All four in the group exhibition represented artists work in series. Often returning to subjects they had touched in one or the other form in earlier group of works, or, as in the case of Klodin Erb, they continue an ongoing series. Since 2013 she paints portraits, which she calls Orlando and numerates to distinguish them. The title of the portraits refers to the important book Orlando (1928) by the English writer Virginia Woolf, and suggests a certain reading of the series. The novel describes the life and development of the figure Orlando from the 16th to the 20th century with all its errors and entanglements, amongst others the initially male Orlando changes his gender. Klodin Erb expands on the “rhetorical” figure of the Orlando initiating the ongoing series of portraits. The models for the
portraits could not be more diverse: on the one hand she appropriates famous paintings from art history on the other hand the portraits emanate from her pure imagination. In these portraits a moment of self-portraiture, self-awareness and identity seeking always resonate in different guise. In these Orlando portraits the skills of Klodin Erb and the delight to paint are tangible.

Beside the paintings by Klodin Erb hangs a painting by Anna Amadio from the series of the Painting Kiss. Even the title labels this work as Painting, it holds a strong sculptural element also due to their method of fabrication. Anna Amadio regards herself not as a painter. Her reference to painting is solely to use the canvas as support for the visualization of a pictorial idea. The starting point for the Painting Kiss works is the Rorschach inkblot test. Amadio wanted to superimpose a first impression with a second one. According to the artist the second test covers the legibility of the first one: hiding or even protecting it. The number "Two" suggests a kiss – and therefore points to a spatial dimension and an exchange. From the second Rorschach test only the rear side of the color flush is visible. Anna Amadio has commented that this is probably the smallest spatial work she has ever realized and that this has resulted in working in series.

In the main room the large Indian ink drawing Ground I by Franziska Furter welcomes the viewers. It was shown for the first time in its year of execution 2004 in the Galerie Friedrich in Basel with Gound II. The drawing renders a black-and-white volcanic landscape. In the back room hang two further drawings by Franziska Furter from the Vision Cloud series, Drift und Rainy Day. The drawings from the Vision Cloud series possess a personal note as they are based upon Franziska Furter’s own observations from “her Cloud“: Visual adjustments from her daily life seen out of the corner of her eye, for example of things remembered, of things vanishing, of speed or mist. Sometimes she incorporates something formalistic or substantial from earlier works of her or from other artist’s work, she engages with. In this series she captures the unexpected and the transitory. Three new paintings by Pierre
Haubensak complete the exhibition. In these works he explores process and decision making in the pictorial development with precisely set brushstrokes. The choice of color, gaudy orange and turquois, is unusual in the oeuvre of the artist. This, together with the openness of the pictorial formulation, allows the public a broad freedom in the contemplation of the paintings. Both turquois color paintings are similar, same size, color, distribution of brush strokes etc., but at the same time they possess a completely different character due to different grounds: one the one hand a white primed cotton and on the other hand an uncolored acrylic ground on canvas. In comparing both paintings one can seize the idea of diffusion and the passing of time.