New State of Birds

Christiane Blattmann & Jannis Marwitz
apes & castles, Brussels

January 15th – February 22, 2015

Our initial thought – as we're both working in different media, but sharing same ideas – was an approach to the question of transportation and transformation. We were wondering about artworks that, in a time of of high transportability, apply the "good manners of a room" (e.g. a square, corners, the walls, a floor, the ceiling, etc.), within an acceptance that these features are nominal and therefore almost virtually usable. We think that's strange! Not only does this shatters the perception of the artwork in the room itself, but makes it adaptable for almost any context needed.

But to be sure: our approach to this exhibition lies in the image. It's less about how images travel these days and in which media (?) they appear in front of us, but more about their shape, their rendering and how this changes on various displays, if you want to call it like that (canvases, a wall, a relief, a sculpture, a screen, a readymade).

In the beginning we used water; to be more precise the states of water. To get rid of our common understanding of its transportation through tabs and drains, we were curious about the transportation that happens between solid and liquid, liquid and gas. We transformed this to a method that we can work with: Instead of the physical states, we use a wallpainting, a relief, a sculpture – also to be less systematic.

Within these considerations, it is important to us to look at the exhibition space itself. To ask what is there, to arrive more clearly at the point of what can be there (in situ) and what remains transportable – and maybe most important: which can be the transitions in between?

As examples for transportation between different states of images we have been looking at the Tiepolo frescos in Würzburg and at Siquieros’ frescos in Mexico, which both comprise stucco elements within the painted surfaces. At the other end of the line, we’ve been looking at painted sculptures and Egyptian sarcophagi, which – obviously being transportation containers – are basically sculptural blocs with plaster elements attached that are treated as one surface to be painted on in the end. The thought occurred if there might be a way to treat the walls in the exhibition space as sculptural surfaces. 

The term „rendering“ seems to be a notion keep in mind when looking at these transportations of states of images.

Going back to the actual space this also means to ask: when can the rendering be a simulation – claiming for example the walls to be transparent? Transporting the state of the space itself?