THE, 2023
Rohr, 2022

On the gallery’s front wall there are two contrasting works that create their own interplay. On the one hand the word THE (2023) has been written on the wall using a stencil, and on the other hand there is a cobalt-blue plastic Rohr (Pipe) (2022) to the right of this word. The textual element is the definite article that is used in English to refer to a specific (linguistic) object, and has already been seen in this exhibition in the work group The Door (2022). Here the article now seems to be referring to nothing at all and to be similarly dysfunctional as many of thereadymades, but it also refers to the pipe it is placed next to. In the abstraction of this object, we can, however, discern no internally logical or linguistically meaningful expression. The object remains completely undefined and resists the means of language, just as language in general cannot be transferred into images. In this interpretation, this work can be seen as a culmination of the first room of the exhibition — we are moving among objects that are merely displayed and that, in their connection to language, vacillate between different levels of meaning and then come to nothing, while having a similar quality to poetry.


THE, 2023
Wall text, paint applied by means of stencil
80 × 24 cm

Rohr, 2022
Plastic tube, painted cobalt purple
395 × 20 cm

Courtesy Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna