overlaps

overlaps

Claudia von Funcke • Mickaël Marchand

Opening: Friday, April 17, 2015, 7:30 PM Finissage with artist talk: Sunday, May 17, 2015, 7:00 PM

Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Modern cities have become a topology of overlapping realities and narratives, fragments and components, old memories and ever-new content projections. They are constantly (de)constructed and ultimately remain unfinished and fragile. The exhibiting artists Claudia von Funcke and Mickaël Marchand focus on these complex processes of the "transitory city." They explore dispositions and structures in the urban context that are associated with states of instability and dissolution or challenge familiar spatial perceptions.

Claudia von Funcke documents, analyzes, and dissects urban locations, unspectacular spaces, and ordinary facades, reassembling them anew. In her large installation LIKE A PERHAPS COLLAPSE, she mounts the inverted elements of a suspended grid ceiling tilted 90° against a wall of the art space. The viewer looks at the back of the system. This standardized ceiling, emblematic of the purely functional everyday life in an open-plan office, is on the verge of collapsing. The moment before the collapse and time as an additional dimension of space thus refer to the dynamics of surfaces, objects, and even spaces that can potentially be displaced and are ephemeral. The serial cheap material, poised just before breaking, underscores the fundamental uncertainty of all existence. The installation is complemented by screen prints and photographs that also engage with layering and architecture.

Mickaël Marchand's artistic interest lies in urban space and the physical interaction with various materials. In addition to his sculptural work with materials like wood, steel, and concrete, he prefers to work on the streets of different cities. There, he creates ephemeral sculptures from found furniture and everyday objects, which he documents photographically. Through ongoing experiments, he explores natural balance and the limits of stability. The use of the time-based medium of video also allows him to capture the construction and destruction of his sculptures or record transformative processes. In another series, he creates third spaces through photographic double exposures of various in-situ installations. For the exhibition "overlaps," Mickaël Marchand will create a spatial installation where these different approaches converge, intertwine, and overlap.

Curated by Susann Kramer