Mirja Busch: Pfützenarchiv

Mirja Busch’s “Puddle Archive” is an installation (which spreads throughout the entire gallery), as well as a science-like examination of a peripheral phenomenon.

The archive is composed of two parts:

A,
from approximately 100 photographs selected from a collection currently numbering 2,186 archive photo-graphs. Each photograph documents a puddle and has been archived with a code. For the documentation, Busch photographed in 16 cities[(for instance Copen-hagen, Hamburg, Berlin, Kassel, Munich, Vienna, Brus-sels, Paris, Barcelona, London, New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Santiago de Chile, Cordoba (Argentine Re-public) and Buenos Aires).]Thus, only a fraction of the photographs produced is on view in the exhibition.

B,
from an installation, made up of 199 bottles filled with puddle water and three 7.5 meter shelves, each with 4 levels.
The water in the bottles has been siphoned from the corresponding puddles. Questions of interest for Busch include: What is the volume of a puddle, and what color is the water? Can the temporary phenomenon of a puddle be preserved and archived? Can puddles actually age? The project, then, revolves around aspects of temporality and the utilization of urban space. The puddle water itself contains dissolved material ori-ginating from the site of the puddle. Each bottle is labeled with the date and time of collection, as well as a general denotation of the collection site, such as a playground, parking garage, median strip, cemetery, etc.
Puddles collect in places where surfaces have been disrupted. For this reason piles of asphalt and concrete pieces add to the installation in the gallery.

With “Puddle Archive” Mirja Busch sparks us to reflect upon surfaces (including the superficialities of politics, as the case may be). Puddles equally mirror natural processes and human intervention. The artist studies forms and appearance. Urban materiality is analyzed through form and color. She documents the things so often overlooked. Saving, holding on, accumulating, sorting, stacking are the preferred activities of the artist as researcher.

C,
In addition to “Puddle Archive” (and not directly related to the archive), Busch’s video work "Missing the Spiral Jetty" (2014), which refers to one of her Land Art projects, is on view in the basement of the gallery. The video shows the surrounding landscape of Robert Smithson’s famous “Spiral Jetty,” the shape of which Busch follows while filming with a handheld camera, thereby capturing the artist’s perspective during the creation of his Land Art project.
At the time of the shot, Busch could no longer see what Smithson had seen originally. Instead, from a contemporary point of view and accounting for current water levels of the Great Salt Lake, she describes:
“North - no mud, no salt crystals, no rocks, just water. North by East - no mud, no salt crystals, no rocks, just water. Northeast by North - no mud, no salt crystals, no rocks, just water...”

The sculptural idea (which surely includes Joseph Beuys’ social notion of the “expanded concept of art”) accompanies her innovative artmaking. One is enthralled by Busch’s curiosity, by the clarity of her thoughts, her energy and the way she questions life. Moreover, a certain roughness and radicality in her artistic practice cannot be ignored.

Christoph Tannert

Wed - Fri 2 - 7 pm / Sat 11 am - 7 pm
and by appointment

Opening
Friday, November 14, 2014, 7 pm
opening speech: Christoph Tannert