{"id":24105,"date":"2006-06-02T11:53:51","date_gmt":"2006-06-02T09:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/?p=24105"},"modified":"2022-06-16T16:26:31","modified_gmt":"2022-06-16T14:26:31","slug":"harmony-rhythmically-interrupted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/harmony-rhythmically-interrupted\/","title":{"rendered":"Harmony, rhythmically interrupted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harmony, rhythmically interrupted<\/h2>
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GUNTER FRENTZEL<\/h5>\n<\/div><\/div>

02.06.2006 \u2013 20.08.2006<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

\"OLYMPUS<\/div>
Gunter Frentzel, Exhibition view Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Werner J. Hannappel<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>
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Harmony, Rhythmically Broken<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Gunter Frentzel installs a sculpture at DKM Foundation. It is a piece that occupies the entire back wall of the space, offering any number of options in terms of experience. The motif <\/span>composed on the wall builds on a complex organizational principle that, in addition to <\/span>geometric, drawing-like and spatial components, also emphasizes the relationship with the <\/span>audience. The artist has placed individual iron rods at regular intervals, at a specific angular <\/span>inclination and parallel to one other, such that they lean flat against the wall. Several <\/span>staggered rows of rods jut out from the wall and extend into the space. Cross-connections of <\/span>rods can be seen between the layers. The pattern, which extends across the entire surface, <\/span>takes on a life of its own as soon as viewers move back and forth in front of the work. The <\/span>rods appear to shift, condensing at some points before dissolving. They interlock and <\/span>intertwine. They form perspective-distorting constellations. A number of facets open up <\/span>depending on where the viewer is standing or moving – wherever they find themselves in <\/span>space.<\/span> The changes in the foreground mask those in the background, as if there were no <\/span>underlying rhythm or recognizable regularity to what is happening; order slips into chaos, <\/span>clarity into the incomprehensible.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>

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Frentzel realized his first wall installation in 2003, for a show at Baukunst Galerie in Cologne. <\/span>On a short section of wall, he arranged a number of rods according to clearly-defined <\/span>specifications. The simple organization yielded an unexpectedly breathtaking range of optical <\/span>effects. Since then, the imagery has become increasingly complex, the patterns more intricate. <\/span>And yet a closer look reveals that this installation, too – like all of Frentzel\u2019s earlier works – is <\/span>based on a clearly-recognizable structure; the changes are perceptual in nature. Regarding it <\/span>conjures the widest range of associations as well: One could think, for example, that Frentzel <\/span>has translated invisible information into the visual spectrum, or a mathematical structure into <\/span>sculpture. It also evokes an analogy to music. Its structure recalls minimal music, for instance, <\/span>a genre that develops ever-new, meditative variations over an underlying melody.<\/span><\/p>\n

Frentzel, winner of the Solothurn Art Prize, has mastered the austere material. The artist first <\/span>began experimenting with the standardized, unpretentious industrial steel rods in 1997, and <\/span>has since produced countless sculptural creations by simply layering, stacking, hanging or <\/span>leaning them against the wall. The forms, with their often visually difficult-to-fathom patterns <\/span>generated by alternating layers of material and glimpses through those layers, are frequently <\/span>so evocative as to override principles of construction. In the beginning, he would lay a round <\/span>or square black metal plate on the floor, then arrange one end of the rods around the contours <\/span>of the plate while leaning the other end against the wall. He later omitted the metal plates and <\/span>arranged them freehand. The latter method resulted in fan-shaped wall works in which several <\/span>rods stand close together, the upper end leaning against the wall, the lower end arranged along <\/span>a line running diagonal to it. The slight rotation creates a tension; an otherwise rigid material <\/span>appears to vibrate. In the sculptures constructed using geometric floor plans, he shifts the rods <\/span>inward by their diameter in two opposite corners as he layers. The massive, yet fragile- <\/span>looking structures are in danger of collapsing. Frentzel pushes statics to the extreme. Every <\/span>rod he adds to a fan-shaped floor work, for example, could well start to slide. His <\/span>constructions are always conditioned by the structural possibilities of the material. The artist <\/span>uses no brackets or fasteners of any kind and sets no welding points to fix the work. The <\/span>sculptures support themselves. This is also true of the installation shown here, a work that <\/span>consists of two hundred rods that hold each other in subtle balance. Should only two rods be <\/span>removed, the entire installation would collapse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gunter Frentzel always thinks of sculpture in the context of space. He considers how an <\/span>autonomous sculpture might be realized without subordinating itself to the space. Or vice <\/span>versa: he thinks about how a space might be developed with sculpture. The new work tests <\/span>new possibilities. By placing the rods in dialogue with the wall, Frentzel expands the <\/span>discipline\u2019s scope to encompass drawing-like wall installations. Like the Minimal artists, <\/span>Frentzel deals in the objecthood of art. He eliminates arbitrariness and coincidence. He <\/span>pragmatically and consistently follows his own intuition and sense of beauty, uncovering new, <\/span>surprising forms in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Kathrin Frauenfelder<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Translation: Amy Patton<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GUNTER FRENTZEL (CH)
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