Eight
Days A Week 2000 : BATAKS : Axel Höptner - Drawings
& Wolfgang Lüttgens - photoworks
Croxteth Hall,& Country Park.
West Derby. Liverpool
7. - 26. Oktober 2000
 |
SABINE
M1LLER DESCRIBES WOLFGANG LIJTTGENS' INSTALLATION BEING SHOWN
AT CROXTETH HALL
A kind of box (above left) which seems to function as a container
for photographic material: when looking inside, edge to edge,
numerous black and white photographs, the size of contact sheet
prints forming a homogenous surface, can be seen. The shiny
surface suggests fluidity. The pictures seem held together by
an unknown internal logic, to float on the surface. |
Wolfgang
Lüttgens - photoworks ZWISCHENZEITLIC
 |
Croxteth
Hall,& Country Park
Below them we sense more pictures trying to reach the surface.
From the depth of the volume, from the underground of the container,
they react against the rigid arrangements of the visible surface.
The proportional relationship between the container (115.2 x 115.2
x 51 cm) and the contact prints (24 x 36cm) gives the impression
of condensed mass and high density. The thin wooden walls emphasise
this impression as their load bearing capacity is stretched to
the limit. |
 |
Even
though the container is not'filled' to its outer rim, it gives
the impression of being about to spill over.
When looking
closer the photographs reveal themselves to be of the kind we
know all too well: snapshots, views of the personal living environment
of a specific person. Can we form an opinion about this person?
Curiosity is aroused/awakened by the minute size of the contact
prints. Yet even if we came face to face with them, not a lot
could be discerned. A superficial impression remains. Some particular
details of the photographs indicate that they were taken recently,
yet nothing really recognisable is revealed. |
 |
The
scaling down of the prints in comparison to ordinary ones, and
the outdated technique of black and white photography, distance
the reality of the pictures...
excerpt
of text Unter dem Pflaster by Sabine Muller
|
 |
AXEL
HOPTNER WALL TO WALL
Axel Hoptner (above) talks about his drawing proposal for
Croxteth Hall.
"When I first picked up photographs showing the exhibition
room at Croxteth Hall, I was struck by its bulkiness.
To present pictures which were created in a different context,
and put into frames, would - I fear - appear alien, and therefore
make dialogue more difficult.
The traces left by a catastrophic fire at the hall laid bare
the brickwork, and this in turn inspired me to deal with the
space.
|
Axel
Höptner: Bataks - Croxteth Hall, Liverpool, 2000
 |
The scaling down of the prints in comparison to ordinary ones,
and the outdated technique of black and white photography, distance
the reality of the pictures...
excerpt
of text Unter dem Pflaster by Sabine Muller
|
Using
the technique of 'frottage', I intend to reveal the texture of the
wall by transferring it on to paper by the pressure of rubbing pencil
and charcoal. A dialogue develops-my dialogue with the space-through
a conscious, creative intervention in the process of making visible.
In the resulting exhibition I confront the real wall space with the
wall drawing on paper".
Axel
Höptner: Bataks - Croxteth Hall, Liverpool, 2000
Thomas von Taschitzki
writes about the artist:
"Axel Hoptner counts as one of those painters for whom painting...
is still an adventure, an expedition into the unknown, the unpredictable.
That the resulting paintings can surprise even himself, marks an important
part of his motivation and a momentum of tension. His pictures are
therefore never planned, but created from the impulse of the moment."
All
photographic images by Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann.(c)
2000
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
www.eightdaysaweek.org.uk
|
