Caroline
Kryzecki
COME OUT (TO SHOW THEM)
09.09.-21.10.2017
Sexauer Gallery
Streustr. 90
13086 Berlin
Streustr. 90
13086 Berlin
Images courtesy the artist and SEXAUER Gallery
Photos Marcus Schneider
JPS: Caroline,
you are well-known for your ballpoint pen drawings. They are usually up to 270
x 190 cm and consist of thousands of lines drawn with a ruler. This time you
have made a floor piece of 15 x 15 meters. Why?
CK: I see it as a huge drawing. The gallery’s
gray floor, which is not visible at the moment, is very dominant otherwise. It
is by far the largest surface in the gallery, much larger than the walls. The
physical experience is important to me. The floor piece changes the perception
of the space as a whole. The walls and even the ceiling have a pink hue from the red floor’s
reflection. It is strenuous to expose oneself to it, one might get dizzy. I
placed the grid of lines at a slight angle and it does not cover the whole
floor. The silkscreen prints do, but not the grid. This is a reference to
the works on paper, the drawing is practically laid out on in the hall. The
hall has a square shape. I undermine this shape by suggesting a slightly
shifted rectangle, which leads to additional tension.
JPS: You have put together over seven hundred
silkscreen prints for this piece, a very elaborate process. Why silkscreen
printing?
CK: My works are always handmade and thereby
analog. Even if they sometimes seem to be machine-made or computer-generated.
Differently than my works on paper, I used grid-based modules for this floor
piece that basically function like tapestry. As a result the structure is
constructed very evenly. To retain that human imprecision that is
quintessential to my drawings, I decided to use silkscreen printing for the
floor piece. Silkscreen is an analog printing technique and each leaf looks a
little different. The template for the prints is also drawn and made by hand.
There are little errors and irregularities that make the piece alive. These
give the work something human, something uncontrollable. I am convinced that
this is something the viewer perceives, albeit unconsciously. Besides,
silkscreen printing demands strength. It is a bodily challenge, similar to the
large-scale ballpoint pen drawings, especially due to the large number of
prints it took to complete the floor piece. This way the work resembles an
unique drawing rather than a typical print. An original emerging from
reproductions.
JPS: The title of the exhibition: Come out (to
show them). What is it that you refer to?
CK: It is the title of a Steve Reich composition.
In this work, Reich uses multiple tape recorders and always the
same sequence of words: “come out to show them”. The quote
comes from the statement of a young man who was subjected to police brutality.
It is continuously repeated. The slightly differing speeds of the devices
result in a barely audible scintillation. Just like the drawings and the floor
piece. This method of Reich, phase shifting and minimal deviations
of a recurring constant, is very familiar to me. How the nucleus of
his work refers to reality is also something that interests me. That reference,
however, is not that direct in my work as in Reich’s. My ballpoint pen drawings
are inspired by everyday photos I take of recurring structures. Construction
components stacked on each other, façades, fences, walls.
JPS: Which one
is more important to you, the concept or the execution?
CK: The execution is also
important to me. Here
I differ from Sol LeWitt, for him the idea
was the most important. Although I am very systematical in my work, it is
always an intuitive approach that marks the beginning of a process. In this sense I am closer to
Steve Reich. For me, the systematical approach is a tool and never an end in
itself. Similar to music, the execution of meaning and the viewer’s experience remain
significant even after the concept and the system are determined. A temporal
dimension emerges through the repetitive moment. Repetition is only possible “in time”. The temporal
dimension is reinforced through uninterrupted exposure of the viewer to the
work. They can only withdraw by leaving the gallery premises.
JPS: What was most fascinating to you about this
work?
CK: There were many things. It was certainly
exciting not to know how the piece would turn out until the final moment of
completion. Also, in contrast to works that are not site-specific, I could not
just replace it. I had
just one shot. I also could not just simulate it
beforehand. When I walk through the hall after completion for the first time and see that it ‘works’, that is, of course,
splendid. Obviously, unpredictable things happen too, which are crucial for such a work.