The first London solo exhibition by German artist Markus Keibel sees a continuation of his interactive site-specific installations, as featured in PORTIZMIR 2 (2010), the triennial of contemporary art held in Izmir, Turkey. Exploring semantic roots and the poetry of materials, Keibel’s work brings to surface enigmatic, abstract forms.
Since 2005, the Berlin-based artist has not only developed conceptual site-specific installations, but also an abstract idiom using different forms of human traces. The perception of viewers is the issue addressed by Keibel, whose current work investigates how colour interacts with viewers. His sculptures, paintings and works on paper draw their elements from simple materials, often using pigmented glass and acrylic colours to modify their mode of operation.
Created on-site especially for the Arch 402 Gallery, Inside Complexity will reveal a large-scale floor sculpture, designed for viewers to walk over and leave traces as they move. Characterized as an ever-changing form, the four concentrated circles—created using different coloured pigment powders—shift and disperse throughout the exhibition venue, causing the colours to lose their intensity. As part of the exhibition, the transformation of Keibel’s ever-changing floor sculpture will be captured both in a time-lapsed video and on canvas.
In order to create these final works, the gallery space will be closed the day following the Private View (11th Feb) when Keibel will use the transformed pigment areas to create big canvases (170 x 280 cm), revealing the transcribed traces of human movement.
Keibel’s interactive installations are less focused on how interaction with the work evokes feelings in the public, but rather, with how these feelings act on given materials, as the pigments ultimately seem to reveal a sentimental beauty. Rendering the pigments in his own specific mode of representation, Keibel not only prefigures subjectivity in the abstract but also his own subjectivity, from a viewpoint that questions the prescriptive experience.
Words from Necmi Sonmez
Where – ARCH 402 GALLERY | Cremer Street, E2 8HD | Tue-Fri 11-6
When – 12 February – 18 March 2011 / Private View 10 February 6-9pm
