Kari Altmann, Hermann Gabler, Aaron Graham, Gizela Mickiewicz, Oa4s, Vincent Vulsma, Robin Waart, Jana Winderen

Clean Music is a group exhibition that starts off with the misunderstanding of viewing surface only as a kind of camouflage, as something that paradoxically hides through its being visible.
It is possible to use various forms and shapes to blur the difference between a figure and its background: this is especially useful in the case of vertical figures. When this possibility is used as a tool to hide shapes, contours, and the abstract structure or function of the camouflage itself, it could be that recipients still notice something. In this sense, Clean Music makes the possibilities of connections wider.
 
The topic of surface as it appears in the minimal, the abstract, the expressionist etc. is well known. This concentration of aesthetics on form is now a recollection of more stable times. The success that such forms have in contemporary art seems to be related to a yearning for values of a different era, while the more likely function of this focus on surface is probably to hide the many different crises within our current times. But since appearance and reality cannot be separated–appearance might be the only way we have of accessing the real–it could be that exactly in this sense the surfaces of this exhibition are what they pretend to be.

Participating artists: Kari Altmann (US), Hermann Gabler (DE), Aaron Graham (US), Gizela Mickiewicz (PL), Oa4s, Vincent Vulsma (NL), Robin Waart (NL), Jana Winderen (NO)

Curated by Mitchell Thar, organised by Hermann Gabler.
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Kari Altmann (1983, based in New York) shows Something Tougher is Coming (SHARPP, Smart Mobility) (2009-ongoing). The animation depicts a pattern that shreds the screen it is displayed on, like a viral video-installation file. Installed on two flatscreens and as a projection, the work stretches the elasticity of digital media.

Hermann Gabler (1958, based in Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna), shows a new group of paintings Passiver als passiv (2016). Acrylic on canvas and lying on tables, the group of objects opens painting into a conceptual space. The concept of „interpassivity“, which has been invented by the philosopher Robert Pfaller as a reaction on interactivity exactly 20 years ago, is here used as a logo.

Aaron Graham (1990, based in New York) uses the mechanics of formal abstraction and its relationship to the extreme pace of now ubiquitous image feeds: his Wheat Paste Grids are a series of US letter-size printable files built into a grid. As downloadable files, they circulate from an image on the screen to fully realized surfaces of wallpaper connecting to their surroundings with no preference to a specific context.

Gizela Mickiewicz (1984, based in Warsaw) exhibits two sculptures, Latter End and Equally Near (both 2014). These works were made through intervening in the factory production processes (called deep drawing and metal spinning) of baking tins and a pot, being taken out mid-production. Presented as objects removed from their utility, they are none the less recognizable in their forms.

Oa4s (founded 2013, based in Mexico City/Amsterdam) is an artist-duo who recently presented their exhibition True butterfly at Chin’s Push: the video, named after that exhibition, traces the ceiling of this Los Angeles gallery, inverted and hung upside-down. At the kunstbunker the video is presented under these same conditions, inviting visitors to simultaneously experience the ceiling surfacing in the video and its underground counterpart in the bunker space.

Vincent Vulsma (1982, based in Amsterdam) shows the series ARS NOVA E5305-B (2009), which are prefabricated canvases left in their shrink-wrapping and spray painted black. Further, Vulsma airbrushed lines of white onto the folds that occurred in the process of spraying over the plastic. Framed by interpretative means of the packaging, the works unsettle their monochromatic appearance.

Robin Waart (1978, based in Amsterdam) used collecting as the basis of the work shown here, Thinking in Pictures (2010). Waart collected film-stills that state ‘What do you think?’ via subtitles in different movies. In freezing the screens and applying this tautological process, the works analyze the psychology of the surface as a medium between thinking and viewing.

Jana Winderen (1965, based in Oslo) plays her album Energy Field (released by Touch, 2010), a three-track work of recordings from glaciers, fjords, and the ocean near Norway and Greenland. Her sound investigations take form as a layered audio work that uncovers submerged textures and vibrations.

Curated by Mitchell Thar (1991, based in Amsterdam). Mitchell Thar is an artist who also organizes exhibitions with other artists.

Radio-Z: Feature und Gespräch mit den Beteiligten