Plants and Other Animals
Lulu MacDonald
Franziska Opel
Eröffnung 6. September um 19 Uhr
offen 7. –– 8. September, 14. –– 15. September 2019
jeweils von 15 bis 19 Uhr und nach Vereinbarung
Lulu MacDonald und Franziska Opel zeigen gemeinsam „Plants and other Animals“ im Künstlerhaus Frise. Dabei kommen die miteinander verwandten Form- und Zeichensprachen der beiden Künstlerinnnen erstmals ins Gespräch.
Bei beiden werden Momente der Kunstgeschichte ausgeschnitten, in installative Skulpturen umgewandelt und in die Jetzt-Zeit versetzt. Manche Skulpturen erscheinen wiederum so flach, das sie als Bilder gelesen werden können. Andere Bilder erscheinen multi-dimensional und können nur als Skulpturen beschrieben werden. Bedeutungen werden verschoben und Grenzen ausgelotet, metaphorisch und räumlich. Diese Herangehensweise vereint die beiden künstlerischen Positionen und soll nun miteinander konfrontiert werden.
Plants and Other Animals
He had always been deeply, passionately fond of flowers… flowers and all sorts and plants; plants whose leaves unfurl from flat baskets, which grow in watered pots, under green awnings or under red parasols…
For him, however, real flowers paled in comparison to the potential of artificial ones. He began creating faithful, floral replicas. He performed miracles with rubber and wire, silicone moulds, calico and taffeta, paper and silk. He thought of nothing but flowers, continually haunted by memories of magnificent, fantastic plants and other animals…
His were enormous heart shaped leaves each with their own unique markings protruding from rigid, hairy stalks. Emperor green skin ridged with false veins; worm bitten and consumed by leprosy. A deep red hue of scars, a tint of incipient scabs, hollowed with ulcers and embossed with open wounds.
The plants were most bewitching like vegetable ghouls, haunting the room as the air grew clammy, swollen with the smell of them. Then, in the shadowy dimness of a corner near the floor, a white soft light crept.
“These plants – “ he whispered, “all are diseased.“
His gaze fixed upon the grotesque, streaked staining of the plants, caressed by a ray of light. A sudden vision of humanity, of mortality, drew closer to him, its hands around his neck. Since the world’s beginnings, every creature had endured its ancestry, its eternal ache of sickness.
His body brushed against the hideous plant’s wound.
He felt himself dying.
Based on Joris-Karl Huysmans, Des Esseintes’ orchids and other exotic flowers; The nightmare woman.
aus der Serie
“snakes”
Franziska Opel
Detail
“Neitherherenorhair”
LULU MacDonald
mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Behörde für Kultur und Medien
