L.A. Galerie Lothar Albrecht
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Jarg Geismar
- Additional Information -
Opening on Saturday April 20th from 11 am - 4 pm. The artist will be present.
without you
The title of this exhibition, without you, refers to a common sentiment in today's mobile world which also represents a prominent theme in the artist Jarg Geismar's work: the experience of absence. Geismar lays emphasis on being internationally active, on experiencing very different living and working conditions, he has lived in the United States for a considerable amount of time, repeatedly traveled to Japan on invitation, and also realized projects in Thailand, Zambia as well as many European countries. The exhibition to be shown at L. A. Galerie revolves around encounters, separations, conversations, and recollections thereof. While Geismar has employed a great variety of materials and media, this exhibition focuses on painting. In addition, there are sculptures, drawings, and a video work.
lines, cables, cuts*
Geismar often reuses materials, such as cables, which lay traces across rooms, serve as catches for the tableware in "cable brunch," or hold together sculptures made from mattresses and cushions, to name a few examples. While they evoke certain associations in the context of each individual work, the cables also carry an overriding artistic function: They constitute lines that direct the viewer's eyes and thus provide structures to surfaces and space. The cables are much more materially present than, for example, drawn lines, but they are also of a rather provisional nature, as they can easily be removed. Geismar's work is characterized by reduction--a cable becomes a line, a cut stands for a shape.
cutting is like drawing
People have disappeared from pictures. Only their silhouettes indicate their earlier presence. Scissors have pursued them, the cuts outlining the shape of their bodies. In the ancient world it was believed that the art of painting originated out of the desire to remember someone: according to the legend, a girl copied the shadow of her lover to the wall as he was going to be away for some time. The "Cut Outs" recall this myth of origin. As one can tell from the manufacturers' imprints on the white paper, they are photographs turned around. There used to be a picture, in other words, and someone was on it, but he or she is no longer there.
fragments of memory
"Red Identities" is another series dealing with the process of observing, remembering, and forgetting. In this case silhouettes were painted behind glass and filled with flashing-red paint. The surrounding glass is covered with white paint. The resulting effect is one familiar to the museum's visitor: The glass, meant to protect the picture, reflects one's face, which for a moment becomes actually more interesting than the picture itself. A mirror on which the silhouette of a person was drawn and then covered with transparent foil creates another, however ephemeral, face-to-face situation. Stepping in front of the mirror in order to see the figure, the viewer makes it practically disappear by his or her own reflection in the mirror. For the sculpture "I sell this for a living II", photographs were placed between concrete stones such that they show from the stones, but whatever is on the pictures cannot be seen.
missing people, missing things
Like cables, clothing and shoes feature prominently in Geismar's work. They, too, recall someone who is missing. They form a hollow body, embracing not a human being, but emptiness. Compared to "We came and we didn't leave" (1998), a piece involving empty coats and sound, "We just left" (1990/2002) is even more reduced. While both people and their environment have disappeared in the "Cut Outs," only shoeboxes with tissue wrapping paper of different colors remain in "We just left," lying across the floor in a graphic arrangement.
For more information please contact L.A. Galerie Lothar Albrecht.
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