| STEFAN ROIGK
Swarm
Private View: Friday, 20 February, 2009, 7pm
21 February bis 21 March, 2009
Swarm is Stefan Roigk’s first solo show at KUTTNER SIEBERT
Galerie. The installation for which the exhibition is named occupies
a large part of the space, although the two opposite elements made
of Styrofoam, albeit wall-filling, are only quite thin. It is the
accompanying sound that generates a spatial presence for the installation,
and our attention is no longer limited to the optical markings
of the perforated surface but locates the beholder in the midst
of the work.
Swarm is marked by a fundamental ambivalence and a linked
dichotomy of points of view. By and large, it is a characteristic
of the installation itself, which is positioned flat against
the wall, only becoming spatial and gaining volume by way of
its acoustic enrichment.
The sound, which seems organic in structure, has an ambivalent
relationship to the static construction, which in its subdued charm
is reminiscent of the wall paneling of public offices.
The holes reveal a layer of foam behind the paneling. The characteristics
of both materials are normally used to insulate or to seal. Here,
it is the surface itself that, freed from any function, becomes
the object of aesthetic sensation. This autonomy of application
is amplified by the consciously enacted destruction that excludes
any other function beside the mere existence here. The arrangement
of the holes attests to something dynamic, almost a sense of drawing.
And seen as such, the paneling that strictly follows a pattern
becomes a support, but where the drawing does not consist in the
application but the removal of material. The structure of the sound
develops analogously to the ordering of the holes, when the sound
waves, static for a long time, are broken by pulse-like noises.
The quality of the sound in its density, its polyrhythmic structures
and the extremely distorting modulation approaches the limit of
the bearable, yet underscores the withdrawn qualities of the materials
used. Sound and object combine in this synthetic relation to form
an expansive installation.
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