Petter Kreuger, Tobias Sternberg & Nat Tafelmacher-Magnat

IMMATERIAL PROPERTIES

1 - 24 FEBRUARY 2019

INVITED by TOBIAS STERNBERG & Nat Tafelmacher-Magnat

Browsing through an exhibition catalogue or picking up one of those info sheets found in every gallery exhibition, we are used to seeing artworks listed with a specific set of properties: title, artist, year, dimensions, material (or medium). These crisp and sober facts help us not only understand exactly what it is we are seeing on a small perhaps b/w printout, but also to put the artwork in context. Is this a recent or an early work of the artist? Is it a unique original or a reproduction? Mostly, however, we love to consider and discuss the material aspects of the artworks. We speculate on how they were made, awe at the detail and structure, wonder at the colour and depth. We look them up and down, walk around them and view them from different distances. Often we can quickly classify what we see and move on. It is more satisfying when we can't. Gaps in what we understand about artworks are like a disruption to the viewer seeking meaning. Our brains immediately work to re-balance their world with small narratives that reinstate harmony and provide a coherent explanation. The viewer lives in the spaces between the materials at work in a piece of art. Empty spaces invite active minds to come breathe there and be creative. In such a way the work finds completion in the viewers' minds, with variations from one person to the other. Petter Kreuger makes sculptural paintings or colourful wall-objects, depending on how you want to see it. The space between the lines can write meaning without words. The empty air crowding his dioramas is as substantial as the surrounding sculpture and is flooded with implied colour. We are encouraged to look through and between if we want to catch a glimpse of what is at work here.
www.petterkreuger.com/

In the series Home-Defensive, Tobias Sternberg plays with functionality as a material aspect of sculpture. His stylish wooden sculptures are equally deadly weapons, and the understanding of their usefulness shifts the way we see them. Form takes another life in our minds’ eye when we imagine it in motion.
www.tobiassternberg.com/

Nat Tafelmacher-Magnat explores documenting difficult subjects in her video and photography work, like growing old and helpless, mental health issues, or socially unacceptable emotions. The works suggest a life, a problem in a discreet fashion, without giving too much away, and it is up to the viewers to fill in with narratives from their own lives in the intimacy of their own hearts and minds.
www.vimeo.com/nattafelmachermagnat/