post_modellismus – models in art - krinzinger projekte - Galerie ...

appear as models. They create chains of
references in which artworks refer to models
or genres of models, or to the artworks
that have model character or actually had
this in the history of art. The nub of what
Dorscheid has referred to as post_modelism
consists in creating a multiplication of
semantic movements and a connotation
that has neither a beginning nor an end.
This strategy of unending chains of reference
becomes most evident when these
models-a-artworks appear as toys. Hardly
anything is better able to illustrate the law
of true-to-life representation as the miniature
world of toys. This is nothing other
than the adaptation of reality to a child’s
perceptual and design possibilities. Yet in
play something more happens. In a child’s
play the rigid boundary between something
completely natural and something
disconcerting dissolves, as long as children
do not distinguish between being
and ought. In addition to toy culture, the
commodity or value character is addressed,
i.e., the appreciation and depreciation
of models. Appropriations of toys can be
found in the works of Zbignew Libera or
Darren Neave and John Cake, who deliberately
refer to themselves ironically in a
childish and naïve way as Little Artists. Yet
Libera leaves a bitter after-taste, since his
work is a self-assembly set of a concentration
camp. He is only able to transform
the theme by taking into account its aesthetic
character which is related to play
but not identical to it.
The second approach to revealing the undecided
nature of model and reality can be
found in the attempt to play with model
aesthetics, e.g., by imitating inexpensive
materials and simple means of design.
These models seem at first glance more
conventional, since their artistry diminishes
and they seem more credible and
straightforward. They usually refer to architectural
plans. Yet on closer scrutiny it
becomes clear that here more factual
ideas are seldom presented. Silke Schatz
builds houses out of photographs, Gregor
Eldarb architecture out of shreds of cardboard,
which are disconcertingly layered
constructions. Barbara Sturm addresses
the exhibition, its accessibility as well as
its furnishings. Peter Belyi forms an entire
city district out of slides. In all of these
works, the question as to materiality is discussed,
but also temporal aspects come
to the fore. These models are not works
on which originals and buildings yet to be
built are based, they are not visions and
future prophesies, but originals themselves.
In this sense they trigger off a
logical short-circuit. Time revolves in a
circle and subverts its own prerequisites.
It is as if the future were being occupied
before the past and the past were only
accessibly as a vision.
One can even find the reverse strategy in
the exhibition. It consists in using photographs
as alleged documents. The photographic
works by James Casebere,
Thomas Demand, Lois Renner, Martin
Dörbaum, Edwin Zwakman and the video
work by Oliver Boberg are mise-enscènes
of model worlds. All of the artists
named depict a reality that does not exist
as such. They are aesthetically characterized
by the fact that they have a tendency
to painterly finesse, but also to addressing
the issue of true-to-life-depiction and deciphering.
References – even if hidden –
were added so that in spite of the credible
deception it can be felt that the pictorial
reality does not correspond to something
real. For these photographs the transfer to
another medium is also important, through
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