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until 28.11. | #2884ARTatBerlin | Semjon Contemporary shows from 24th October 2020 the exhibition edit-2.0/Der Zweite Öffentliche Raum (> The Second Public Space) with wall objects, installation and photography by the artist Thomas Prochnow.
The two-part title of the exhibition already reveals that two artistic and thematic focuses are set here, which Thomas Prochnow will show. edit-2.0 summarises the two previous exhibitions edit_black (2017) and edit_white (2019), or presents an excerpt from both.
In both exhibitions the artist presented his edit works, which deal with principles of order and question the concept of standardisation. On the one hand there is the order – one could also say the edit feature – colour, on the other hand there is the order of the standard size, the DIN size. Following both parameters as basic principles, the artist creates a field of activity that is diverse and surprising in its output: If in edit_black the colour black is the main feature, the artist composes from all imaginable materials, be it found objects (wood and building board remains, coated or raw) or materials from the DIY market such as grids, rubber mats and the like, which he assembles into a picture as in an assemblage. It is not difficult to see an influence through the history of Constructive Art from Classic Modernism to post-war modernism, which, however, always contains the moment of artistic refraction in the created work. The sizes of the works are schematically divided into work groups from DIN A6 to DIN A1 or even DIN A0.
The artistic refraction is the act of individualisation of the work to be created or of the created work, which could first of all be understood as a free declination of one or more norms. If Thomas Prochnow concentrates, for example, on a series of works which includes the DIN A4 size and the colour white as a principle of order, a variety of pictorial works is created which could not be more diverse. Sometimes they are pieces of white plastic, for example, lined up and glued together, sometimes aligned horizontally, vertically or even diagonally. Found pieces of plastic or wood, which have the colour white as a surface feature, are joined together to form layered, sometimes strict and sometimes less strict constructive ensembles. However, each picture is cut to A4 size. In this way, rows or series are created which, when hung next to each other, create a vital interplay of form, structure and colour. Taking into account the shadows of the relief-like works, but also the density of the white colour application found, they are all identical in height and width.
Thomas Prochnow, 2020, 2ÖR installation, Serie mixed, colored ZZ1, 2016
In the current exhibition, Thomas Prochnow combines the ordering principles of colour (here white and black) with DIN size, and a contrasting staging already grows before the inner eye, which forms a varied composition in size, structure and form and the colours black and white (and their respective differences).
The works from his series Der Zweite Öffentliche Raum are all colour photographs, realised as pigment prints on fine art paper. The artistic photography is the last materialised step in his long prepared spatial interventions. This medium may and should also survive, but the basis for it, the artistic intervention in found spaces, is abandoned to fate:
The artist comes from the East German graffiti/street art scene of the post-reunification period and over the years has developed a self-sufficient, strictly formal language, certainly a result of his studies at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Dresden, among others with Monika Brandmeier, and his intensive examination of the history of Constructive Art.
His interventions in what the artist calls the Second Public Space are always of an intelligent nature and captivate us with the beauty of the contrast between minimalist artistic interventions and the beauty of picturesque abandoned places with traces of former life, be they industrial ruins, bunkers or inhospitable, technoid street architecture such as bridge pillars and the like, which have been handed down to us in photography.
The artist’s lonely, almost eremite-like intervention in these spaces is passed on to us through the cleverly staged photography, and through it we take part in his pioneering conquests of space. The trophy photography typical in the graffiti scene has become a powerful and at the same time quiet artistic photography.
The photographic works are realised in different sizes and edition sizes.
The titles of the photographs bear witness to his systematic approach, the ordering in colours and forms, and thus refer to the structural-ordering spirit of his other work groups of edit-2.
Semjon H. N. Semjon, Oktober 2020
Currently his work group of the Second Public Space is presented in the magazine CUBE (online version): https://www.cube-magazin.de/blog/detail/sCategory/38/blogArticle/652
Soft Opening: Friday, 23rd October 2020, 4:00 – 9:00 pm
Exhibition period: Friday, 23rd October to Saturday, 28th November 2020
Save the date: Dave Grossmann | semi collapse + Accrochage | 12.12.2020 – 23.1.2021
To the Gallery
Image caption: Thomas Prochnow, 2020, 2ÖR, installation, Detail Serie mixed gp colored gp ZZ1 2016
Exhibition Thomas Prochnow – Semjon Contemporary | Berlin Contemporary Art – Exhibitions Berlin Galleries – ART at Berlin
