Irregular News

Melanie Ender, Sofie Thorsen, Jenni Tischer

 

Petra Rinck Galerie, Düsseldorf 2024

 

The exhibition IRREGULAR NEWS brings the three artistic positions into a considered context, which allows the common analytical interests, the individual and subtleties of the works shown to emerge, and above all to work together for the first time. What all artists have in common is that their place of work and life is in Vienna and that all phases of their artistic production, as well as their authorship, are always reflected in their artistic approach and work. The results of their investigations and analyses, and especially the locations of their presentation, their spatial structure, are an equal part of the artistic discussion. In the exhibition situation itself, this can lead to spatial specifics being addressed and, furthermore, to moments in which transitions between the works become fluid and sensitizations that begin through a work by one artist find a possible continuation in the work close to it by another. Already within the works, contrasts in the nature of the materials used can lead to openings in perception and broadening of perspective. Sofie Thorsen marks the wall background of the gallery with the instrument of the chalk line in an expansive installation through quick and precarious markings, in front of which selected stone showpieces find their place. The resulting tension between accurate chalk lines and the eternal, natural formation of the stones is transparent in the notational nature of the presentation. The novelty value of Irregular News, which is assigned to the exhibition title despite the irregularities also mentioned, can also aim at a recollection of historical knowledge regarding social reproduction, and thus also at details of former unrealized urban planning models such as Llano del Rio (Antelope Valley, California, 1911–1914), by the feminist city planner Alice Constance Austin, to whom Jenni Tischer refers concretely and diagrammatically in her canvas formats and sculptural sketches. The artists bring into focus approaches to artistic work on infrastructures, highlighting their tools, the radius of their use and also how within their fields of activity and criticism, citing or exposing a historical reference. The choice of materials, which are often used contrary to their usual use due to additional interesting characteristics, all of this unites these three artistic processes in attitude, standards and care, in addition to their feminist convictions. In Melanie Ender‘s works, the raw material plasterboard, in addition to its already multi-flexible application options, also becomes the venue for fine cuts and inscriptions, which, however, end just before the panels could break. By outlining and recording the work steps while hinting at the impending result of further repetition, Ender undermines and focuses her authorship on one of her signature materials itself. The fact that the materials and techniques listed now often stand for and are used for architectural planning measures in models, conversions, designs, etc. is just as remarkable in this context as is the scope and incompleteness of the otherwise independent artistic projects by Ender, Thorsen and Tischer that here in Irregular News are worth seeing short-circuited.

Christian Egger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fotos: ©Johannes Bendzulla
exept: nr.5+6 ©melanieender, nr.12+11 ©kunstdokumentation.com