curated by Domenico de Chirico
March 16 – 27 April 2019
Nir Altman
Ringseisstrasse 4 RGB
80337 Munich, Germany
What is presented to our senses in Kalas Liebfried’s solo show seems to evoke both a space that constantly
tells about the existence of time and a time that constantly tells about the existence of space. It is a visceral
space-time that tears apart our usual stopping by sterile environments and speaks about their hidden
frissons.
Aristotle’s understanding of “potentiality” seems to be throbbing beneath the walls of Nir Altman’s gallery,
where all the elements coming into play are continually seeking something which is unspoken but developed
for the entire duration of the exhibition. The sustainability of this duration is almost bearable as
demonstrated by the sculptural elements supporting the walls to highlight a breach, a laborious process of
unveiling where the sacrality of time is articulated by musical repetition.
The title of the exhibition Selected Ambient Works 85-92 clearly refers to the first album by Aphex Twin from
1992 and is a strong reference to Erik Satie’s idea of an ambient ‘music genre’. Satie’s omen was to allow
for the possible creation of a music genre whose duty is the freeing from those kinds of banalities, dictated
by the need for often useless logic. By overcoming possible acoustic pollutions, the genre would function as
a sonic carpet, something that would suggest a levitation of the environment wherein it situates itself. Just as
a metaphysical amplification of what is already there, it facilitates the becoming of things and the fluidity of
time and space. An elevation as such is actually a maximum slope towards the abyss. An irreverent search
for matter itself, investigated throughout all the levels of its manifestations – acoustic, visual, tactile – which
subsequently “extrapolate” itself in forms and sounds charged with connections.
The aim of this exhibition is to create not just singular works of art but, rather, a system. It is a construction
of gathering elements that seems to be extracted from and worked into the same place where these
elements are situated. Thereby, they are collectively reflecting on the traces of unconsciousness and its
transitory conditions. This ingrediants reflect upon the relationship between the mind and the object, upon
their consanguinity, the graduation of intermediary mediatic spaces, their communicability, the subtle optic
cross-references, light and darkness, upon joined oppositions and the upturning of habits. The goal is to open
a path towards a new acknowledgement for artistic production as an environmental “method” on its own.
What is researched through this alternative paradigm would not figure as the relationship between the artwork
and its surrounding environment but rather as one that hands over the microphone to this very same
environment.
- Domenico de Chirico