In Between at Vila Schönigen / Potsdam

In Between

Catherine Biocca, Ceal Floyer, Isabella Fürnkäs, Marius Glauer, Annabell Häfner, Martina Kügler, Marcellvs L., Karin Sander 


Curated by Sonia Gonzalez


30.09. - 26.02.2023


Vila Schönigen

BerlinerStr 86

14467 Potsdam



















Images courtesy the artists and Vila Schönigen
Photos: Sascha Hermann

The exhibition "In Between" at Villa Schöningen deals with the theme of the
intermediate state. All works shown deal with this theme and circle around it
associatively.

In addition to the works on display, the architecture of the building is also integrated
into the exhibition. The works do not hang classically in the center of the picture and
direct the visitor's gaze to the visual axes planned by the architect of the house,
Ludwig Persius.

About the works:
Karin Sanders glass sculptures, which she has been making since 2013, literally
freeze time. The unique shape depends on the consistency and forms the slowly
solidifying flowing structure. Several layers are poured on top of each other,
depending on the consistency, the works take on their unique shape. A specific
moment, an intermediate state is captured in a sculpture. The cooled glass
sculptures that slowly solidify are reminiscent of both lava and ice.

Klavierwellen by Marcellvs L. was recorded in the lagoons of Venice on 4 November
2010. An upside-down piano, with microphones on the soundboard, was transported
on a small boat. Filtered through the acoustic properties of the piano, the resonances
of the strings, the waves, the engine, the boats and the sounds of the surrounding
lagoons can be heard. The movement itself, the journey, helped compose the piece
to be heard.

Marius Glauers works explore the borderline between photography and sculpture.
Glittering surfaces, flowers and found objects become the subject of his photography.
The rolled-up photograph, usually a short-term stage for practical reasons, becomes
the final form here. The title La Buse recalls the pirate of the same name and his
cryptograms.

Isabella Fürnkäs work comprises equal parts video, multimedia installations,
performance and drawings. In her works, she deals with questions of bodily intimacy,
the digital ability to relate and the fragility of social communication structures.
The drawings shown are a selection from entire series. In her drawings, feelings,
upheavals, intermediate stages are always the starting point. Emerging from a raw,
intimate practice, the drawings "visualise a moment of cognitive overload" in which
inner boundaries collapse and the world enters unhindered.

Martina Küglers works were shown in 1975 in the exhibition Junggesellenmaschinen
curated by Harald Szeemann and in 1976 in Kunstraum München. Due to psychiatric
stays and episodes of schizophrenia, her career did not follow a straight course later
on. In Kügler's drawings, existential themes such as identity, the body, sexuality and
the question of the subject can be found. A pictorial language that is marked by
conflict and could not be more topical.

In the video installation "Sabotage" (2019) by Catherine Biocca, jewellery, clothes
racks and dust covers, whose installation on the corresponding stands take on
anthropomorphic facial features, speak directly to the viewer.
Here, Biocca addresses questions around the topic of "civil disobedience" and refers
to the treatise "Discours de la servitude volontaire" (Treatise on Voluntary Servitude)
by the French high judge and author Etienne de la Boétie, which was written around
1574. It can be considered one of the earliest and pioneering investigations into the
reasons that lead people to renounce their own freedom in order to submit to
decisions made by someone else.

Central to this writing is the idea that all things are natural to man, upon which he
feeds and to which he becomes accustomed: thus the first cause of voluntary
servitude is habit. The dictates of fashion, beauty ideals, advertising and their
influence on our behaviour make the monologue delivered through the constructs of
fashion and jewellery seem an ambiguous message: Are we being coached or are
we being subversively encouraged to rebel against the dictates?

In Annabell Häfners picturesque series of non-places, we find transit spaces of the
modern world. Although we hear the supposed architecture of waiting rooms, airport
halls or hotel rooms, it is no longer possible to draw a clear distinction between inside
and outside, architecture or landscape. We also sense the weather, but we cannot
make out a specific season. Through the painterly reduction, the fleetingness of the
moment, even of the seasons, seems to have been captured.

On the large windows of the villa, with a visual axis to Glienicke Palace and the
Sacrow Church of the Saviour, there are countless stickers of the shadowy outlines
of buzzards. This approach is known to protect birds from glass panes. However, the
absurd number of stickered birds severely restricts the view outside for onlookers.
The installation recalls the attack scenes from Hichtcock's classic The Birds. From an
everyday, prefabricated object, Ceal Floyer creates a tension and allows for a
multitude of associations.

A large rectangular serrated saw blade protrudes from the parquet floor and seems to
cut a large circular hole in the floor. The line, which is only wafer-thin, questions the
stability of the floor we are standing on and thus changes the perception of the
space.