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until 31.01. | #4858ARTatBerlin | Taubert Contemporary shows from Friday, 7. November 2025 the exhibition “Knotted Time” by the artist Jens Risch.
With Knotted Time, Jens Risch presents his first solo exhibition at Taubert Contemporary – a concentrated insight into a body of work that has been radically dedicated to the interconnection of time, material, and action for over two decades. In the tradition of conceptual and process-based art, as encountered in the work of Hanne Darboven, On Kawara, or Tehching Hsieh, Risch transforms a seemingly simple, repetitive gesture – the knotting of a thread – into a poetic exploration of duration, presence, and existential perseverance.
A multi-layered artistic universe unfolds across four rooms, quietly yet powerfully questioning the relationship between presence and absence, process and documentation. The focus is less on the visible result than on the invisible framework of time, discipline, and repetition that underpins these works – an approach that can be traced back to the meditative rigor of Eastern practices as well as the Western tradition of performative self-measurement.
In the first room, visitors encounter three key works from the past decade: Seidenstück6 (2015–2017, 1,269 hours of work), Seidenstück7 (2017–2018, 1,679 hours of work), and Seidenstück8 (2018–2020, 1,858 hours of work). Each of these pieces consists of a single silk thread (1000 m long), which the artist has knotted as many times as possible. Specifically, this means that first a row of knots was tied into the thread, then a second, a third, and so on in the same manner. The seventh row of knots, which represents the final form, is a fractal shape, about the size of a fist, weighing approximately 30 g and representing a good year and a half of condensed time.
The second room brings together fifteen black-and-white photographs (2000–2025) showing places where Risch carried out his daily knot-tying work, mostly while traveling. Empty stools, chairs, inconspicuous surroundings: the artist remains absent, but the action is palpably present. The baryta prints form a silent archive of changing backdrops for artistic practice.
Room three displays Seilstück3 (100 m hemp rope, 2014) and Jutestück (100 m jute cord, 1998), early and parallel works that explore the principle of knotting with coarser materials. The physical presence of these works contrasts with the delicacy of the silk pieces – and at the same time refers to the consistency of the conceptual approach.
Finally, the fourth room brings together Risch’s knot notes: meticulously handwritten records of his daily working hours from 2015 to 2025, organized into annual blocks. These notes refer to the performative and contemplative character of his practice – to knotting as a ritual, as a daily practiced continuity, as a trace.
Knotted Time creates a contemplative space of experience that makes visible not only the materiality of knotting, but also time itself – as a lived, embodied, and ordered dimension of artificial existence.
Opening: Friday, 7. November 2025, 6 – 9 pm
Exhibition dates: Friday, 7. November 2025 – Saturday, 31. January 2026
To the Gallery
Title image caption: Jens Risch, Knotenplatz, Berlin, 24.01.2025. Baryta print, framed. 45,5 x 35,5 cm. Edition 3 + 1 AP, 1/3.
Exhibition Jens Risch – Taubert Contemporary | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
