On Lines
Participating Artists:
Jeongmoon Choi • Werner Keller • Arne Schreiber • Carsten Struck • Benedikt Terwiel
Opening: May 11, 2012, 7:30 PM
With On Lines, the Kunstverein Neukölln focuses on a fundamental artistic medium. The exhibition brings together works that share a specific characteristic: the clear, objective, and abstract line. Eschewing expressive gestures, these works are grounded in various conceptual and methodological approaches. The line appears across different genres: from ink and graphite drawings to painting, sculpture, and spatial installations. This range of media reflects the evolving understanding of drawing in contemporary art.
Jeongmoon Choi employs the line to create spatial structures. Using colored, spatially tensioned wool threads and black light, she produces a fluorescent, atmospherically dense drawing in space. Designed to be interactive, the work invites viewers to walk through it, allowing them to experience the three-dimensional lines in both a sensual and physical way.
Werner Keller presents a delicate wire sculpture that offers a comprehensive view and possesses a sketch-like quality. Numerous equally sized, open cubes spiral upward, defining the space. The subtle rhythm of their arrangement creates an optical flicker, making the fragile-looking tectonic line construction seem to vibrate. Only by moving around it can the viewer grasp the complex sculptural structure from the multitude of possible perspectives.
In Arne Schreiber's serial work, vertical white lines emerge from a largely technical painting process; they are residues of a somewhat negative color application. A black-primed sheet is completely coated with white acrylic paint, which is then partially removed in a second step using a spatula guided by hand along a ruler. The resulting white lines reveal traces of a manual gesture upon closer inspection, establishing a physical relationship to the technical process.
Carsten Struck operates in the border area between drawing and painting with a large-format ink drawing. It was created discontinuously over the course of six months. Depending on the duration and intensity, a meditative working method emerged, which could be interrupted at any time due to the systematic approach. Following a strict system, closely drawn vertical lines in bold colors alternate, creating the impression of an almost seamless, rhythmic arrangement of similar lines. Viewed from a distance, the repetitive arrangement coalesces into a dense, homogeneous line texture in subtly shifting gray.
Benedikt Terwiel explores the pattern of a common folding package in a seven-part series, initially presenting a single view of the four sides, then gradually folding them together. The chosen template—cut out as a flat shape—possesses a formal tension with its spatially folded version. The drawings aim to enhance this tension by aligning the direction of the drawn lines, which build the surfaces line by line like a printer, with the angle at which they would be folded at each edge. This results in a linear structure with a high degree of abstraction.
Curated by Norbert Steigerwald