M A T E R I A L M U T A T I O N S

04.08.2022
Verena Kandler

Collages from found materials of the Maxvorstadt Munich.

Exhibition in the Munich Underground Gallery from 01.08. to 30.08.2022.

Text by Verena Kandler

The focus of the exhibition lies on the research and material utilisation of found and collected  objects from the Maxvorstadt. The basis for the work are motif banners from the Pinakotheken in Munich that are no longer in use. The following will be the subject of the recycling motif fragments from Dürer's Self-Portrait in a Fur Coat and François Boucher's Baroque work Madame de Pompadour. In the case of the former, the eye and hair details of the artist Albrecht Dürer are visible, in the latter a close-up of the shoe depicted. Through the choice of the the depicted detail, the motifs are given a symbolic power: On the banner with the shoe, I explore the principles, the grounds and a point of view of our society.The standing shoe is a snapshot of  social dynamics. It poses the metaphorical question: where do we stand? 

Motifs of the Baroque, such as overload, appearance and transience, resonate historically with our western present. The work examines processes of the stripping off culturalpractices and the neo-archaeological accumulation of these shells, skins and exoskeletons of former and (still) present goods of humanity. In the substantively Dürer's eye cut-out, the observations of the previous work are are bundled by an artistic lens and projected onto a possible future. 

This is how I present my role as an artist: I see myself as an initiator and networker in the midst of processes of social change. A collaborative collage in cooperation with the Turtle Magazine combines these two approaches to temporality and at the same time represents a multi-faceted methodology for change. Depicted are material mutations and strands of growth that interconnect with each other and in exchange bring change through exchange. In this context, mutation is analogous to the cell mutation as a natural process of change. Mutation as a natural process of development and trial and error. The networks and connections that emerge function on an experimental level like an echo sounder that searches for solutions and foresight. This expresses the deepest human striving for progress as well as a lust for innovation that tends towards greed. 

 

The concept of thread games also becomes a central motif of the exhibition, borrowed from the literary text Remaining Restless by Donna Harraway. The term appears as an equivalent to the verbal phrase “Mit-machen” (“participate). According to this, no organism is  self-contained or self-organised: everything needs a network in order to move something holistically. The canonised pictorial motifs of art history are combined with found objects and waste materials during the processual exhibitionand waste materials from Munich's Maxvorstadt. This way, cultural and material heritage are visualised and spatially located on a non-linear time axis into a possible future. Future are visualised and spatially located. Glittering collages of materials meet scenes of grotesque inner humanity and are staged as a spatial installation. 

The works can be viewed directly on my Art24 profile after the exhibition. 

The dates on site are: Live collage on 2/3 and 25/8 from 2-5 p.m. and the finissage on 26.8. from 7 pm. 

Further information about my working methods and services such as workshops and artistic works can be found on my webseite