Thea djordjadze: material manipulations

Chapter 2 with works by Marion Baruch, Heidi Bucher, Martín Soto Climént, Thea Djordjadze, Berta Fischer, Raphael Hefti, Sonia Kacem, Pamela Rosenkranz and Xanti Schawinsky.

Material Manipulations is the second chapter of a collection exhibition based on material as an artistic commodity. After Material Memories showed in the first chapter how material can be charged with meaning, the second chapter deals with the aesthetic quality of the materials, focusing on the artistic treatment processes and material experiments.

Nothing is how it should be: stiff metal blinds hang from the ceiling in dance-like poses. The museum glass, usually non-reflecting, is leant against the wall as an oversized sculpture, mirrored. Rigid acrylic glass floats in the room as a ball-like object. Contrasts form the starting point of this exhibition, at the heart of which lies material as an artistic resource and the aesthetic quality of the artworks. As the title Material Manipulations suggests, the latter arises from unconventional methods of treatment and experimentation with material.

Since the 1960s artists have relied on impermanent or organic materials. For this, they like to work with materials from industry or integrate found objects into their works. Artistic working processes and techniques have long since been subject to constant change and expansion, too. However, in contrast to industrial processing – where the commercial usage of raw materials is governed by the conditions of mass production – no boundaries are set on the treatment of material in art.

The exhibition shows how artists test the properties of material: techniques are re-interpreted; chance prevails in experimental processing or materials and objects are used for purposes other than those intended. This extension of existing conventions in the creation of art can also be seen as the overcoming of what is already familiar – only in this way something new can emerge.