Eight Days A Week 2004 : Accidental lines & red splashes’, Kòln Artists,
Liverpool School of Art, Hope Street Gallery,
68 Hope Street, Liverpool
Private View Thursday July 8, 2004. 5.00 - 7.OOpm
July 9 - 21, Mon - Friday 10.00 - 4.00

Curated by Neil Morris and Pete Clarke, Liverpool and Georg Gartz, Cologne.
Based on: Georges Didi-Huberman `phasmes', Cologne 2001
`Von zufalligen linien und rotlichen flecken', Accidental lines and red splashes

English translation: Margaretha Schcoring.

The events of this story occurred Long before our time. One day in the fourth century BC the famous painter Apelles, unable to complete a painting of Aphrodite, picks up a sponge soaked with a mixture of water, paint and binderand in his frustration and angerthrows it atthe painting. The sponge explodes leaving the image on the surface disfigured. White foam reminiscent of Aphrodite's birth out of the sea covers the painting like a veil.

Gradually the veil recedes and reveals a grid of accidental lines and red splashes. The painted figure of Aphrodite, whom Apelles detested or more likely loved too much, is barely visible any longer. The splash has concealed her body and the outlines become blurred. Just a moment ago his work was unfinished now the issue seems settled. The presence of Aphrodite even though she is no Longer depicted as such is stronger than before. The act of destruction becomes a creative process.
Apelles perplexed as if in a dream: being pulled between the extremes of clinging to reality and daring to believe in the unimaginable; gazes at the miracle he unintentionally created. No further touches are required to complete what Apelles set out to achieve.
The painting evokes astonishment and admiration in all those who see it. Soon it becomes well known under its still famous title Aphrodite anadyomene, she who sprung from the foam of the sea emerges and submerges, appears and disappears.

Georg Gartz : The colours in my paintings are layered like archaeological remnants to convey a multitude of memories. Colours seemingly put on canvas haphazardlyare immersed in rich manifold layers. Drips, smears, blots or a pale veil; impenetrable yet transparent; then a sudden burst of light: familiar and reassuring; a balance of opposites; painting becomes a metaphor for life. In my paintings colours evolve into shapes and forms without being a concrete representation allowing the viewer to sense the tension created by harmony and discord. Born in Krefeld 1955, Georg studied Fine Art at the Fachhochschule Koln.
He lives and works in Cologne and has exhibited in and outside of Cologne, showcasing the diversity of his creative output. Co-founder of the Eight Days a Week project Georg has collaborated with the Liverpool based artist Pete Clarke since'99.

Photography is for Michael Wittassek the object and the medium of his art. To start with he constructs his images using ordinary photographic techniques. Then he subjects the prints to a process of manual alterations using drawing and sculptural techniques. He rips, tears, scratches and attacks the surface, before photographing the results of this transitional process. The photograph appears to be a pretext to question reality and its representation. The enlargements reinforce the optical illusion of the tears like a trompe-l'oeul and incessantly agitate the viewerto question.

What does the viewer look at and consider in such an image? The places and objects of the initial photograph, the alterations of that representation orthe alterations of the photographic surface or the skillful collage of realities and mixed up representations-all of which are condensed in one image on the smooth, flawless surface of the photograph.
Incidentally Wittassek questions the domain of sculpture, painting and graphics through photography. The way in which these works are installed adds to the turmoil. No definitive answers are given, instead the viewer is prompted to reflect on reality, subjectivity and the psychology of the image.

The main focal point in the work of Veronika Moos is the use of textiles as a symbol. Cloth is a soft and transparent material. Like skin: taking nearly every shape and form, it adapts to all your movements and it has undergone different metamorphoses. She experiments with different techniques and explores various concepts as a form of awareness of one's surrounding. Traditional expectations of textile material are contradicted and so in this way, she creates new perspectives towards an ancient material.
Born near Cologne. Veronika studied Fine Art at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Germany She has exhibited extensively in Germany and internationally.
Since 1999 she has participated in 'eight-days-a-week' and was the organiser of 'made in Kiiln-gefunden in Liverpool'. the artist initiative arranging an exchange between five Liverpool and five Cologne artists as a part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the sister cities Liverpool/Cologne in 2000.
currently Veronika is realizing the collaborate art project "belonging & Beyond" with the Liverpool artist Lin hollard.

Tine Wille : "As morning mowers. who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads, even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy. cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea."

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Reviewed by Tim Hughes : Liverpool School of Art & Design, Hope Street July 9th - 21st

The Blurb as I go in reads: "Liverpool School of Art and `Eight Days a Week' presents `Von zufalligen linien und rottlichen flecken', and I have to agree with them entirely.
It is part of a cultural exchange between Liverpool and Cologne, by a group of German artists called Georg Gartz, Veronika Moos, Tine Wille and Michael Wittasek.
I am not overly impressed with the modern-style paintings I first come to; they remind me of when I helped my parents pull old wallpaper from the wall when decorating; to reveal various bits of paper going back through the generations! I'm sure they must mean something though. However, any new style seeping into the consciousness of human beings can take time.
Moving on, there are see-through pictures of what looks like wrapped cellophane in all sorts of interesting patterns, and casting different shadows. These are far more interesting to me, and certainly unusual and different.
The rest of the pictures are curious scribbles, like the sort of things kids paint in primary school. They are like dreams, or works of genius that have lain, unfinished, and neglected, only to be gathered up at some time and put on display. The exhibition on the whole has a curious feel to it, I would say like many such exhibitions; inviting but sterile, interesting but not engaging, curious but take-it-or-leave-it.
I must add that one of my colleagues was very impressed with the exhibition, and rather than recanting what I have said, The artists who have displayed their work here are obviously motivated in letting the world see their work, and much of the work does have style and artistic merit, even if I personally am not that taken with it.

The piece de resistance are three silken oblongs of material, in three different colours, with scribble plant-like designs, hanging in the middle of the room. I truly think its all a bit, well, not that interesting to be honest, and I am not being intentionally cruel or funny, just honest. Equally, this is my personal opinion and I wish not to hurt anyone's feelings; we all must do what feels right, and hopefully what moves us, and helps us move on to a better place. The only things that really interest me are two glass tables by the door, full of Liverpool and Cologne memorabilia, and blurbs advertising the exhibition. Perhaps I am not in the best of moods, but I wonder when a group of artists will create something that is as vital as it is interesting, that has impact but also lasting appeal. I am not a snob, but I prefer the old schools of painters and sculptors, when paintings where paintings, and sculptures were sculptures, and you could buy a portion of chips, well, for a halfpenny.
My last word is that all cultural exchange is a good thing, if we can see how they live over there, and they can see how we live over here.

 

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www.eightdaysaweek.org.uk

web site: Tony Knox