EVA HESSE AND KATJA STRUNZ AT THE CAMDEN ARTS CENTRE
EVA HESSE AND KATJA STRUNZ AT THE CAMDEN ARTS CENTRE
Katja Strunz (1970-), a contemporary concept artist and sculptor living in Berlin, has created an exhibition of brass musical instruments stuck into metal drainpipes. Some of the instruments are decrepit, others are more recent. Some are identifiable as typical brass instruments, trumpets, trombones, horns, others more fanciful, bizarre, almost Daliesque creations. Most of the instruments are wired for sound. Low pitched metallic grind music plays constantly, sometimes interrupted by higher pitched sounds that tremble and modulate. Pieces of paper are strewn on the floor saying: "Times falling and folding over each other." The blurb at the entrance to the exhibition tells us that Katja Strunz has created the "sound of the Pregeometric Age", whatever that is. This reviewer found the exhibition itself to be a tad derivative of surrealism, Dali, whatever.
Eva Hesse (1936-1970) was a Jewish German American artist who, presumably, was taken from Germany at the time of the rise of the Third Reich, and lived in her adopted country but returned in 1964-5 at the bequest of a West German industrialist. Hesse and her husband lived in a disused factory in the Rhine-Ruhr industrial complex, re-using typical manufacturing items in their sculptures and found object exhibits. The works on show here constitute Eva Hesse's sketchbook, experimental work for possible major installations and sculptures. Eva Hesse evolved out of the abstract expressionism movement, found a Dadaist orientation and then became a Minimalist. Some of the exhibits look like prehistoric sea creatures, ancient sea anenomes or trilobytes, tubular plants built out of latex, plaster, cardboard, resin, fiberglass, polyester, cheesecloth, metal screen, plastic, cotton, rubber, enamel, cord. The eclectic range of materials deployed by Hesse counterpoints the minimalist simplicity of the images. There are wall hangings, objects hung in nets from the walls that look like bits of coal, a boxer's punch bag or a dildo. There are candle's with immense wicks, latex objects that look like old clothes or gloves rolled up. There are long cords looking like communication cords, umbilicals oddly suspended from a latex box (not a human womb), a parachute cord, empty shells, gourds, pillows, bowls, little boat-like objects.
All in all material seems to dictate form. The objects fail to have a meaning other than their own internal coherence, serialist repetitions, traditional notions of meaning are given over to utility, although the objects seem useless both in terms of everyday use and in terms of design. The work is colourful and somehow erotic, a pastiche of our greed or passion for phallic symbols and other erotica found in seemingly everyday objects. Some commentators have made a sensationalist reading of Hesse's life in terms of her affinities with Sylvia Plath or Diane Arbus, but Hesse's continuity of pictorial impulse, clean industrial vision unique in its physical use of light, is far from being melancholic. Indeed Hesse didn't die of melancholia but of cancer and, obviously, she didn't want to die.
But this exhibition is a little homage to her life and work. Its worth looking over this retrospective and then watching the informative film about Hesse's life and work afterwords which is, sadly, all too brief.
Paul Murphy, Camden Arts Centre, London
Katja Strunz (1970-), a contemporary concept artist and sculptor living in Berlin, has created an exhibition of brass musical instruments stuck into metal drainpipes. Some of the instruments are decrepit, others are more recent. Some are identifiable as typical brass instruments, trumpets, trombones, horns, others more fanciful, bizarre, almost Daliesque creations. Most of the instruments are wired for sound. Low pitched metallic grind music plays constantly, sometimes interrupted by higher pitched sounds that tremble and modulate. Pieces of paper are strewn on the floor saying: "Times falling and folding over each other." The blurb at the entrance to the exhibition tells us that Katja Strunz has created the "sound of the Pregeometric Age", whatever that is. This reviewer found the exhibition itself to be a tad derivative of surrealism, Dali, whatever.
Eva Hesse (1936-1970) was a Jewish German American artist who, presumably, was taken from Germany at the time of the rise of the Third Reich, and lived in her adopted country but returned in 1964-5 at the bequest of a West German industrialist. Hesse and her husband lived in a disused factory in the Rhine-Ruhr industrial complex, re-using typical manufacturing items in their sculptures and found object exhibits. The works on show here constitute Eva Hesse's sketchbook, experimental work for possible major installations and sculptures. Eva Hesse evolved out of the abstract expressionism movement, found a Dadaist orientation and then became a Minimalist. Some of the exhibits look like prehistoric sea creatures, ancient sea anenomes or trilobytes, tubular plants built out of latex, plaster, cardboard, resin, fiberglass, polyester, cheesecloth, metal screen, plastic, cotton, rubber, enamel, cord. The eclectic range of materials deployed by Hesse counterpoints the minimalist simplicity of the images. There are wall hangings, objects hung in nets from the walls that look like bits of coal, a boxer's punch bag or a dildo. There are candle's with immense wicks, latex objects that look like old clothes or gloves rolled up. There are long cords looking like communication cords, umbilicals oddly suspended from a latex box (not a human womb), a parachute cord, empty shells, gourds, pillows, bowls, little boat-like objects.
All in all material seems to dictate form. The objects fail to have a meaning other than their own internal coherence, serialist repetitions, traditional notions of meaning are given over to utility, although the objects seem useless both in terms of everyday use and in terms of design. The work is colourful and somehow erotic, a pastiche of our greed or passion for phallic symbols and other erotica found in seemingly everyday objects. Some commentators have made a sensationalist reading of Hesse's life in terms of her affinities with Sylvia Plath or Diane Arbus, but Hesse's continuity of pictorial impulse, clean industrial vision unique in its physical use of light, is far from being melancholic. Indeed Hesse didn't die of melancholia but of cancer and, obviously, she didn't want to die.
But this exhibition is a little homage to her life and work. Its worth looking over this retrospective and then watching the informative film about Hesse's life and work afterwords which is, sadly, all too brief.
Paul Murphy, Camden Arts Centre, London
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