BURGHARD

"FROM NEW"

02.09.06 - 28.10.06

It is with great pleasure that we announce a long-term collaboration between Berlin-based artists Stef Burghard (b. 1971) and Romy Richter (b. 1977) under the name BURGHARD with the exhibition "From New".

At the heart of the exhibition is the notion of sculpture, which is investigated in a multiplicity of ways. From small paper works to marble sculptures and architectural fixtures in the gallery, the exhibition leads us, through the reduction of vision, material and form, to a rather theoretical concept of sculpture.

"From New" is a direct continuation of Stef Burghard's first exhibition with Jan Winkelmann / Berlin. Like last year, the architectural structure of the gallery will be substantially altered for the exhibition by means of temporary walls. On entering the gallery, the observer is confronted by an artificially constructed corner of a room. Behind this, a corridor opens into the rear part of the gallery.

One enters the exhibition not in the usual direction, but via the rear exhibition space. Most of this space is taken up by a closed cube that leaves only a narrow passage around it. The sides of the cube serve as display space for a series of new cut-outs. These 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.

Beyond the narrow passageway, the view opens up into an artificially constructed room with no windows. Here the observer comes face-to-face with three white marble sculptures that are reminiscent of oversized Japanese pebbles. The sculptures throw artificial, geometric shadows made out of pond liner, thus emphasizing their constructed naturalness.

With this play between artificiality and naturalness the sculptures reflect their own presence and their mediated nature. Despite this, they confront the observer just as directly as the architecture of the exhibition, which is a sort of walk-through sculpture. The spatial impression and the sculptural experience can be experienced almost physically - and yet they do not admit of a single reading alone.

Without resorting to formal quotation, the works open up fields of reference in various contexts - in terms of content, these are highly significant for BURGHARD's work. Within this, the idea of the Modern - and its misunderstandings - form a sort of basic principle, whether it is the aestheticized life of the Case Study Houses of the Forties and Fifties or the aestheticization of self-portrayal in advertisements in art magazines. In each case, the problems of staging are identified and explored.

There follow reflections on the aestheticised environment together with the problem and significance of design - be it on the level of typography or in the sphere of architecture. The philosophical background for both fields is given by media theory, in approaches that are reflected in both types of work.

Alongside the exhibition, BURGHARD's permanent installation "RED" is on view in the cellar of the gallery. Here, the artists have created a spatial concept using various additions to give the space a second level beyond its storage function, as a display for the presentation of art. As a site-specific and permanently installed work, Stef Burghard's structure as a whole takes on a significance that goes beyond the purely functional level of organizing space.

Opening hours: Tue-Sat, 11 am - 6 pm

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