Creativity: Furniture Reversal
Klosterfelde Edition invited by Kunsthalle Koidl
In cooperation with fineartmultiple
September 18 to October 29, 2021
Grevinusstraße 34, 10629 Berlin
Our day to day lives are orientated around interior objects. Shifting and altering, the shape and material of furniture affects our routines, our living space, our wellbeing and surroundings. Focusing on our coexistence with such objects, Creativity: Furniture Reversal brings together a selection of 15 works centered upon interior furniture, exploring how their shapes and surfaces alter our perception of domestic environments whilst opening up a conversation between the artists and their relationship with the private sphere.
When Franz West produced his titular work Creativity: Furniture Reversal in 1998, his interest was in the relationship between visitor and artwork, turning the recipients into producers and consumers. Here, furniture ensembles can be designed with adhesive tapes, while visitors are invited to sit on chairs, watching those, who already crafted their own. By imitating, they become part of the installation themselves, while the focus shifts from the object towards the relationship to the object. In Made in Western Germany Blue (2) Rosemarie Trockel reflects on this relation against the global backdrop, by connecting the carpet’s domesticity with the work by Tibetan weavers. In addition, Dan Peterman directs the gaze to the production of the object. The floor- and sitting units made of reprocessed plastic, lift the object’s material veil, that can be arranged depending on preference and invite us for communal use.
Yet, objects also hold memories, are politically charged or emotional power stations. In Mariana Castillo Deball’s artistic practice, objects function as repositories of knowledge, identities and histories. Here again, the relation to the object is paramount. The calendar in the depicted crocodile in Crocodile Skin of the Days quotes the Codex Borgia. It’s one of the few pre-Columbian Mexican manuscripts, that wasn’t destroyed in the 16th century. Apart from three other copies, the Codex Borgia is still in the possession of the Vatikan and therefore underlines the long overdue confrontation with its restitution. The exhibited kites also hold another story. As a sign of solidarity against gender-based violence, kites appeared during the International Women’s Day demonstrations on March 8, 2021 in Mexico City. Even Mexican artist Francisco Toledo used 43 kites to commemorate the murdered and missing students of Guerrero. In solidarity with the Zapatista’s counter-colonial travel from Mexico to Europe, the artist will support this journey with a part of the edition’s proceeds.
Instead of only surrounding us, things rather seem to be agents in our emotional, cultural and political daily life. They turn into media, transmit information or organise our spaces. The current exhibition by Klosterfelde Edition at Kunsthalle Koidl is based on a dwelling’s structure and thereby combines editions by the artists Janine Antoni, Mariana Castillo Deball, Hanne Darboven, Aleksandra Domanović, Cécile B. Evans, Wilhelm Klotzek, Agnes Martin, Matt Mullican, Yuri Pattison, Dan Peterman, Kay Rosen, Lily van der Stokker, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rosemarie Trockel, and Franz West. The exhibition is an attempt to provide a place for the (in)visibility, as well as our relation with and beyond coexisting objects.