GERWALD ROCKENSCHAUB – GEOMETRIC PLAYGROUND
2018-03-12For geometric playground (flamboyant edit), Gerwald Rockenschaub designed a new wall installation in the main showroom space. Four wall works complement one another, a counterpoint comment on each other and thus form a rhythmic whole. The wall works consist of painted surfaces and objects made of acrylic glass. Because of the different materiality of the wall and the mirroring acrylic glass, it is difficult to tell from afar whether the work is flat or three-dimensional. In a way it is both: the 1/8 inch thick objects are three-dimensional, but they are silhouetted against the walls not through their plasticity but rather through their surface effect. The acrylic glass diffusely mirrors the spectators’ movements through the space. The work thus questions two basic properties of walls — their planarity and their statics.
Perfectly crafted and flawlessly installed, the wall works render an aura of hyperrealist perfection. The acrylic glass objects are put up with acrylic screws—and thus ironically appear as functional objects, while being so perfectly chosen and installed that functionality itself appears as a gesture. Playing with function and pseudo-function, Rockenschaub blurs the boundaries between art and design. The painted surfaces with their translucent colors both repeat and are attuned to each other, creating a rhythm of minimal forms that leads the eye through the room. Their size gives structure to the space, while their mirroring effects give rise to a dialogue between architecture, artwork and spectator, constantly renewing the relationship of the latter to the former two.
Opposite – Installation view
Exhibition runs through to April 29th, 2018
Galerie Eva Presenhuber
39 Great Jones Street
NY 10012
New York
