Get Concrete At Some Point - Falke Pisano, Jenni Tischer, Simone Schardt

25.01.–05.03.2011

January, 25. – March, 5. 2011
Opening: January, 22. 2011, 6 – 9 p.m.
Opening hours: Tue – Sat 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

It would seem that the objectivism of geometric construction, of abstract fragments and conceptual information aesthetics reconciled itself long ago with the subjectivism of atmosphere, expression and emotion. But what kind of, and more importantly, whose subjectivity is it that emerges from, or produces, the physical reality of the image object? Ein idiosynkratisches Verhältnis zu Conceptual Art, dem Unbewussten strukturiert als Sprache und Selbst (An idiosyncratic relationship to conceptual art, the unconscious structured as language, and the self), a group of works by Simone Schardt from 2008/09, challenges contradiction and exposes subjectivity as creative marketing, an awkward situation and an (anti)aesthetic form of resistance. At the same time, however, she also reveals it as the unconscious layer of a language that used to be directed at the de-subjectivisation of artworks. In Schardt’s pencil drawings and collages that mainly consist of abbreviations, characters, punctuation marks, vectors and ornaments, these negations oscillate with a diagrammatic of fictional selves reminiscent of psychoanalytical illustrations. Oh Subjectivity, again! (2010) confronts this diagrammatic with queer-feministic figures, i.e. it tries to radicalise the ambivalence of the subjective and question its status within (anti)aesthetic picture policies. On a wall painted in grey and displayed in a showcase, this manner of presentation is set against the objectivist-scientific forms of exhibition and presentation.

The works of Falke Pisano and Jenni Tischer, are also references to irritations of predetermined subject-object relationships. In Pisano’s works the basic principles of constructivist picture objects and space sculptures are reconstructed as deconstructive-performative acts of speech. Thus the physical object obtains the characteristics of linguistic signs and can therefore only convey its meaning through communicating in, and with, the media into which it is “translated”. Pisano creates multi-perspective montages consisting of forms and language: Figure 1 (Context, Past, Present, Future), 2009, for example, is an asynchronous spatial and temporal transformation of view points. This relativization of subjective and objective references turns Pisano’s works into elements within a system of units of meaning, which are of a radically contextual nature. However, context also appears as something that requires constant reproduction through the combination of visual and verbal modes of expression and significance.

Jenni Tischer’s contribution is a series of watercolours and a frame sculpture that is covered and draped with grey canvas. Reminiscent of stage design or altar arrangements, the sculpture oscillates between the abstract and the narrative form and, in combination with the watercolours and the works by Schardt and Pisano, it suggests a scenic space. Consisting of one large and three smaller frames spread across the room, the object functions as an “interface”, integrating the walls and showcases into one single spatio-visual structure. It is thus a process of framing and obscuring that literally describes concrete forms oscillating between three-dimensional physique and two-dimensional layout. In this work Tischer adopts a multi-faceted approach to the concept of montage, alluding to cinema, painting and poetry, and thus making the relation between watercolour paintings and frame sculpture accessible for perception as a functional partition wall, a walk-in painting, an opened magazine, a folded projection surface or a solipsistic object.

The issue of concreteness that Schardt, Pisano and Tischer focus on in their joint exhibition unfolds as a process of events, as simultaneous analysis, montage and situational (object) production that neither allows for the assumption of the complete and factual form nor creates a superficial, definable subjectivity.

Text: Sabeth Buchmann
(English translation: Mandana Taban)


Falke Pisano, born in Amsterdam, lives and works in Berlin.

Exhibitions (Selection):
2010
“Public Speech”, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow. “(conditions of agency)”, Extra City, Antwerpen. “A Performance Project”, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz. “Rehabilitation”, Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, Brüssel. “Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line”, Malmö Konsthall, Schweden.
2009
“Figures of Speech (Formation of a Crystal)”, Hollybush Gardens, London. “Organon on the Wave” (with Benoit Maire), Kunstverein, Graz, Austria. “For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there”, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, USA. “Making Worlds”, 53rd Venice Biennale. “Modernologies”, Macba, Barcelona.
2008
“Desert Solitaire” (with Benoît Maire), Hollybush Gardens, London. “Organon (and the audience perception)” (with BM), Croy-Nielsen, Berlin. “Objets et formes à la Maison”, Galerie Singuliere La Maison, Nice. Yokohama Triennale, Japan. “Word Event”, Kunsthalle Basel. Manifesta 7, Trentino, Italien. “Show Me, Don't Tell Me”, Brussels Biennale und Playground Festival, STUK, Leuven, Belgium.


Jenni Tischer, lives and works in Berlin.

Exhibitions (Selection):
2010
„Search Build and Destroy”, Galerie Gabriele Senn, Wien.
2009
„Alle eure Farben“, Saprophyt, Raum zur Realisierung künstlerischer Projekte und Interventionen, Wien. „Projekt Projektion“, kuratiert von Matthias Michalka, Wien. „Empfindung, oder in der Nähe der Fehler liegen die Wirkungen“ kuratiert von Eva-Maria Stadler, Augarten Contemporary, Wien. „Klassengesellschaft“, Monat der Fotografie, Wien. „Phönix, Texas“, Galerie Patrick Ebensperger, Graz.
2008
„Gruppe Re“, Ve.sch Raum und Form für bildende Kunst, Wien. „Du Dialogue Sociale“ Motorenhalle Projektzentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Dresden. „Kaleidoscreen“ kuratiert von Diana Baldon, Demonstrationsraum, Wien. Mittwochsbar, mit Anna Witt, Wien. „Zusammen“ Motorenhalle, Projektzentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Dresden.


Simone Schardt, born in Spremberg, lives and works in Zürich and Berlin.

Exhibitions (Selection):
2010
“Chambres d’Echo”, Les Complices*, Zürich. “The Intern”, Open Space – Art Cologne, Köln. “Laokoon”, COCO, Wien. “Ein idiosynkratisches Verhältnis zu Conceptual Art, dem Unbewussten strukturiert als Sprache und Selbst”, Schau Ort – Elisabeth Kaufmann + Christiane Büntgen, Zürich. “Eye-ease Phantom Grids”, Skopia, Genève. “Zero Budget Biennial”, Pianissimo, Milano und Rokeby, London.
2009
“You can find me in the lexicon, in the lexicon”, Offpride und Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich. “Kinoapparatom presents: Corpus Callosum*”, Swisscom-Gebäude, Zürich. “Splendid Isolation”, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin.
2008
“ANGSTRAUM”, Künstlerhäuser Worpswede. “drawings”, Fahnemann Projects, Berlin. “Double Exposures”, Galerie Christian Lethert, Köln.