STEF BURGHARD

TILL LATER

22.04.05 - 28.05.05

We are delighted to present "Till later", the first solo exhibition by the artist Stef Burghard, born in 1971.

Stef Burghard's work examines the economic and institution contexts of contemporary forms of presentation. The Berlin-based artist is mainly concerned with the structure and readability of information - with the way in which it is communicated and presented; in this regard, his attention focuses on artistic production as such and, in particular, on his own work.

For the duration of the exhibition, an architectural intervention has been made to the structure of Galerie Jan Winkelmann / Berlin. The two exhibition spaces have been closed off using plasterboard, and cannot be used or entered into. Within these temporary walls, the artist has fitted copper-coloured, shimmering windows taken from his own studio, located nearby in a 1980s East Berlin prefabricated building. The windows turn the plasterboard walls into a simulated facade and blur the boundaries between the internal and the external. The semi-transparent reflective glass allows the viewer to see into the rooms behind at the same time as making their inaccessibility evident; thus, it keeps the viewer at a distance. Burghard's intervention creates a situation which reminds us of late 1960s installations, and picks up questions about the artist as subject, the position of the viewer, and the status of a work of art as an object.

Opposite these windows, works in paper are presented that recall architectures. We are led to think about the floor plans or views of ideal rooms, without being able to define them clearly. It is only when looking more closely that these works reveal their actual origins - they are advertisements taken from art magazines, with the textual information cut out. What we had thought of as images reveal themselves to be advertising that has been made redundant; they point back at the links between economies of attention on the one hand and presentation on the other.

It is this interruption of information that links the two parts of the exhibition. Overall, the installation can be read as a reflection on spaces of presentation and the theatricality of the contexts of representation. These parameters are formed by the tension between that which is present and the deliberately empty spaces. Other questions regarding artistic practice in the studio and mise-en-scène in a gallery context follow.

Opening hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11am - 6pm

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