Commodious Thoughts from Outer Space

11.10.–14.11.2013

Curated by Gerwald Rockenschaub
11.10. - 14.11. 2013

MATTHIAS DORNFELD | ALEX KATZ | BERNHARD MARTIN | MATHIEU MERCIER |
DANIEL RICHTER | THOMAS SCHEIBITZ | ANDREAS SLOMINSKI | DESPINA STOKOU

The exhibition Commodious Thoughts from Outer Space explores the idea of painting extending across different dimensions – that it can be broken down into its fundamental elements or amplified into three dimensions. Here panel painting serves as the principle medium for examining these concepts, and ranges from classical portraits by Alex Katz to extensive sculptural ensembles by Mathieu Mercier. The exhibition at the Krobath Gallery swings between the extremes of figuration and disfiguration. Katz’s realistic representations are juxtaposed against works by Bernhard Martin, while Thomas Scheibitz and Despina Stokou address the abstraction of space, and present it as a two-dimensional collage that hints at its own constructed nature.
The exhibition’s title refers to its holistic and universal interpretation of theories on the curvature of space, where curved two-dimensional planes are transferred into other dimensions. As one-dimensional spaces or – as they occur in paintings – lines do not have an intrinsic curvature, they are rendered in multi-dimensional spaces where they take on an extrinsic curvature. How this curvature manifests itself is determined by the viewers’ position in relation to the art works, which take on concrete form in the three-dimensional context of the exhibition. This exhibition therefore offers an insight into current issues in painting, which, as an original medium of art and art history, now links to present-day media discourses and examines them in a specific context.

Walter Seidl
(Englisch translation: Mandana Taban)