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https://www.contemporaryartlibrary.org/project/david-lieske-at-galerie-karin-gunther-hamburg-21999

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Sometimes experience walks backwards. Consider Marguerite Duras’ lines in The Lover (1984) about the pre-adolescent girl’s face (the author’s) that was already riddled with the sexual damage that would come later. Or the infamous Carl Jung analysis, taken up by Samuel Beckett, about an unhappy patient who, as an infant, had never been properly born. Likewise, sometimes a drawing of a man sleeping occasions that man to go to sleep, which, in turn, occasions an exhibition that features that drawing, and that sleeping, and the objects and dreams that result. Temporality is not always linear, experience and architecture not uniquely progressive. At least such was the case with Mandla Reuter’s recent show at Kunsthalle Basel, where the South African-born German artist, now based in Switzerland, turned time and space into something kaleidoscopic, multi-dimensional, lucid and ecstatic. The exhibition began, in fact, with a drawing the artist’s friend made of a man sleeping. ‘That’s Mandla,’ the friend’s partner pointed out. So it was. After receiving word of the drawing, Reuter rented a room at the Trois Rois, a five-star Basel hotel that glitters above the banks of the Rhine, where he went to sleep in Swiss luxury. Gina M. Folly, the photographer that he asked to enter the room and photograph him while he was sleeping, did so. That image, a small black and white print, was stuck behind a much larger framed offset monochrome print on one of the Kunsthalle’s walls (Untitled, 2013). The show that opened around it also felt like a dream, its logic strange and associative and backwards and very, very right. The first galleries were nearly bare and appeared cool to the touch. Stolid soda machines, sheltering grids of bright, illuminated plastic bottles, stood upright on the wooden floors (Both, 2013). Fluorescent lights, odd in the neoclassical rooms, went bright and dark at turns. An enormous rock rested nearby, its symbolist title the dryly grandiose The Gate (2012). Two rooms further featured expensively plush white carpeting streaked with dirt that Reuter had brought from a parcel of land he owns in Los Angeles. An inky blue diazotype of that lot and a piece of mail addressed to it by the artist himself – accompanied by a stamp from the post office reading ‘No Such Address’ – hung on the walls (No Such St., 2012). On this Kafkaesque piece of postage the exhibition seemed to stop. The galleries beyond were closed off. To access them, one had to leave the building and walk around the corner to the administration offices. There, a new doorbell had been installed. It read ‘MANDLA REUTER’. On pushing it, visitors were buzzed in, then made their way up the stairs, through the library, and into the last two galleries. Here, Reuter’s dreamlike, alternative universe was not cool but flush and warm and surreally furnished. A back room, a speakeasy, an afterparty, an after-hours club – all colloquial names for provisional spaces erected for pleasure were equally evoked. Fluorescent lights continued to rise and fall. A string of multicoloured Chinese lanterns, bought in LA, looped under the ceiling (N Broadway, 2013). Steel beams, vertical and horizontal, sketched out the room like the armature of a building project or a corporate sculpture (Cervino, 2013). An elevator sat, enormous, on a plinth. Prospect 330, E Waldon Pl (2011), a series of 14 gorgeous, upside-down images of LA twilight, taken from the artist’s land, hung like a horizon across one wall, their palm-tree silhouettes blushing deeper and deeper as the lights in the room darkened. A constellation of industrial materials placed in the corners (concrete plinths, enormous water pipes, scaffolding, those steel beams) played against the beauty of these photographs, as well as against a Modernist daybed, a small bronze sculpture (Souvenir, 2009), and a projected 35mm film offering the image of a scallop shell – a replica of the Trevi Fountain in Las Vegas – as it changes colour via the lights that continually illuminate the casino fountain (The Shell, 2011). Each of these images and

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https://www.contemporaryartlibrary.org/project/julian-irlinger-at-galerie-thomas-schulte-berlin-22237

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Photographs of people using escalator slideshow slide film

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In my video installation, "Doorways of Infinite Perception," I explore the interplay between physical and metaphysical realms, delving into the mysterious nature of existence and the boundless possibilities that lie beyond our perception. Through a mesmerizing sequence, the camera pans around a door knob, offering a focal point that serves as a portal to a realm where ordinary rules of reality no longer apply.

The door knob, a symbol of transition and potential, becomes the gateway to an ethereal space where objects float weightlessly in an expanse of boundless cosmic energy. As the camera ventures through the door knob, the viewer is invited to experience a transcendental journey, leaving behind the constraints of the material world and entering an enigmatic dimension beyond conventional comprehension.

Within this abstract realm, the objects that float effortlessly through space begin to undergo a metamorphosis, breaking apart into fragments only to reunite and reform in a perpetual cycle of creation and dissolution. This constant interplay of fragmentation and cohesion embodies the fluidity and ever-changing nature of our existence, reminding us of the intricate interconnectedness of all things.

Through the use of visual aesthetics, such as ethereal lighting and evocative soundscapes, I seek to evoke a sense of wonder, inviting the viewer to reflect upon the infinite possibilities and hidden realities that exist beyond our immediate perception. By employing the motif of the door knob and the endless repetition of the motion, I emphasize the cyclic nature of our existence, suggesting that each threshold we cross holds the potential for new discoveries and transformative experiences.

"Doorways of Infinite Perception" encourages contemplation of the mysteries that lie beyond our ordinary perceptions, challenging conventional notions of reality and encouraging viewers to expand their understanding of the world around them. Through this immersive visual exploration, I invite audiences to embrace the unknown, to venture beyond the limitations of their everyday experiences, and to engage with the infinite realms of possibility that exist just beyond the threshold of perception.

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Erotics of the moving image-fetish and abstraction

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Reflective mannequin

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California Museum of Photography

Riverside, CA

The California Museum of Photography at the University of California, Riverside aimed to established a form for a photography museum which would be distinct – distinct from say, a painting museum. The site was an old Kress Department store in Downtown Riverside. A lens-like space with light entering from both ends. The idea for the Museum of Photography is a camera in which people are the film. The work camera means room. The original camera was a black room with a pinhole which produced an inverted image on the opposite wall. At the entry to the museum is the original camera, suspended over the front door, so that the entry to the building becomes analogous to the beginning of photography. This act turns the building into a camera. Windows of the existing façade are removed, becoming frames for the glass lens behind. Columns are added to frame the entrance. Three holes are cut in the parapet which frame the sky. A new perforated metal canopy is added. An apparatus is inserted on the main floor. Assembled like a ship in a bottle, this single act transforms the structure from a department store into a museum. It divides the space into two galleries permanent and temporary. As a bridge, it becomes a balcony overlooking the mall, and mezzanine gallery. The bridge supports machinery which provides light and air. Below is a bookstore. The elevator and stair which attach to the bridge are made of layers of perforated metals, amplifying movement with patterns of light. These new elements are constructed like a camera, with all aesthetic decisions referring to the materials and image of photographic instruments. They have the tactility of the rippled pyramids felt twisting a lens, of looking through frames of assembled parts fitting together. The colors are photographic, 7 shades from black to white. On the level above is a lecture room, an eye, an ear, a place to look and listen. The entry to the pinhole camera is via a balcony, so that one previews the actual view before seeing the image in the camera.

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/business-40448607.amp

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