Frischzelle_26: André Wischnewski

FRISCHZELLE_26: ANDRÉ WISCHNEWSKI
PFFFSSSPPPFFFSSSSPFFFSSS – KLLLLKKLLLLKKK – PPPPPPPPPP – TSHTSHHTSHTSH –
HMMMMMMMMMMMMM
This could be one of many titles for André Wischnewski’s Frischzelle_26 exhibition at the Kunstmuseum
Stuttgart. The artist has developed a delicate sculptural, spatial drawing with contours
of typical comic book elements – like speech, thought, and sound bubbles as well as panels of
pictorial sequences – covering the space’s main wall. These elements, made of black steel, seem
to derive from an infinitely extensible repertoire of a comics-based, modular framework.
The work’s title 126315 mm with open end (fig. pp. 14/15) underscores this and refers to the length
of the black steel rods in the installation.
In contrast to the medium of the comic book, which usually has a predetermined page size, the
spatial drawing ignores the limits set by the wall and expands across the floor in fragments.
It winds around corners, reaches into the air, and imitates the austere structure of the illumi nated
ceiling typical of the white cube, making its clear lines seem all the more sculptural. A dog-ear
(the kind of bookmark created by simply folding over the corner of a page) found in the opposite
corner of the room acts like a fragment of the drawing.
The spatial drawing unfolds expansively over a large surface into a story in which visitors are
both protagonists and beholders at the same time. Yet the drawing does not reveal the myriad
of expressive images that we associate with comics. Instead, it enlarges the structural and
narrative framework of comics and translates this into the medium of sculpture, transforming
it from two dimensions into three.
Remember, the intellectual sight begins to be keen when the visual is entering on its wane.
(Plato)
To the visual sight, the use of only schematic structural elements from the world of comics appear
rather subdued. However, this piques the beholders’ intellectual sight and inspires them to fill the
empty spaces with their own stories.
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