{"id":24169,"date":"1999-08-21T16:00:11","date_gmt":"1999-08-21T14:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/?p=24169"},"modified":"2022-03-07T15:18:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T14:18:40","slug":"under-construction-l","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumdkm.de\/en\/under-construction-l\/","title":{"rendered":"under construction I"},"content":{"rendered":"

under construction I<\/h2>
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NIKOLAUS KOLIUSIS<\/h5>\n<\/div><\/div>

21.08.1999<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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During the rebuilding for the opening of the Garden of Memories<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Nikolaus Koliusis, Exhibition view Gallery DKM<\/div>
Photo: Nikolaus Koliusis<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>
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under construction<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nikolaus Koliusis (b. 1953 in Salzburg, lives in Stuttgart) works with the elements of <\/span>transparency and reflection, which is to say with light. His means are surprisingly simple and <\/span>succinct: mirrors or glass surfaces and blue filter foil, like the kind used to color light in the <\/span>film industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

The artist\u2019s exhibition at Foundation DKM in Duisburg features 16 large (2 x 1.50 m) double-<\/span>glaze glass panels resting on small foam pads on the raw concrete floor. Between the panes <\/span>hang large areas of the blue transparency sheeting.<\/span><\/p>\n

The space is elongated and divided by a central row of columns; this is matched by a second <\/span>row close to the large storefront windows, which allow a view out into the urban space or into <\/span>the exhibition room. Analogous further columns are situated between the windows, where <\/span>they serve as segments of the wall. The entrance leads to a short corridor on one of the narrow <\/span>sides of the room. These \u00abpictures\u00bb are positioned in various ways. In some instances they <\/span>stand, seemingly precariously, at the corner of a room, leaning by themselves against a pillar, <\/span>or in pairs on two sides of a support; at other times they overlap, having been placed closely <\/span>together against a wall. The general shape of the transparencies varies as well: while in some <\/span>cases they correspond to the contours of the glass panes, in others they skew at an angle, <\/span>appear crumpled or folded.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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A quick glance into the space can give the impression that the large \u00abpictures\u00bb have been <\/span>placed here without any particular intention and only provisionally. This impression is <\/span>deliberate; in fact, Koliusis has employed that installation strategy before. For his work at <\/span>Landesbank Baden W\u00fcrttemberg, a financial institution in Stuttgart, he left it to movers to <\/span>decide how they wanted to place the large frames with transparencies at a particular spot in <\/span>the bank. In that context, the sense of randomness dovetails into an assumption that Koliusis <\/span>has consciously inserted an element of anarchy at this location – an element that, for all its <\/span>chromatic beauty, formal unobtrusiveness, and technical flair, clearly disrupts the smooth <\/span>functioning of the bank as a money machine.1<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Such an interpretation would not do for the installation at Foundation DKM. The focus here is on the richness of the impressions, views, glimpses, reflections, superimpositions, <\/span>condensations. After all the glass panes are not only transparent, they also act as reflectors. <\/span>repeatedly-reflected, multiple present, whereby the \u00abpictures\u00bb reflect not only the surrounding <\/span>space, but also other \u00abpictures\u00bb and the reflections visible on them in turn, thus generating a <\/span>complicated fabric of visual axes. Added to this are the transformations of the image through <\/span>the various creased or smooth transparency foils, which are either folded or suspended flat on <\/span>the glass. In this way the light tubes, which are attached to the ceiling as two lines, blur into <\/span>aleatory drawings on the plane of the folded foils, but at the same time are visible as a straight <\/span>reflection on the plane of the glass panes. Distortion coexists with a \u00abtrue\u00bb reflection of the <\/span>surroundings as well as the simply tinted, but otherwise unobstructed view through the glass <\/span>and foil, which shows the space behind the \u00abpicture\u00bb as well. <\/span><\/span><\/span>As is so often the case with Nikolaus Koliusis, simplicity coupled with a laconic use of means produces a highly complex result; the viewer ought to be willing to appreciate it, to engage <\/span>with her own perception as the thing to be perceived. Using standardized material that by no <\/span>means denies its origins in the industrial field, Koliusis avoids creating an \u00abaura\u00bb in favor of a <\/span>perceptual field that is at once matter-of-fact and visually rich. But this is not about turning <\/span>the artistic means on themselves, nor is it a recourse to the conditions and means of artistic <\/span>production; rather, Koliusis understands his work as thoroughly embedded in the time in which he lives and to which he reacts. Thus, by emphasizing the temporary, <\/span>under <\/span>construction<\/span> also indirectly reflects the economic and urban upheavals affecting the former <\/span>coal and steel mining region and Duisburg\u2019s Inner Harbor in particular, where the exhibition space is located – in an echo of other context-informed works such as the one for the Landesbank in Stuttgart and his installation at Museum Pfalzgalerie in Kaiserslautern.<\/p>\n

In this sense, Koliusis is far removed from the hermeticism and encapsulated reference – lessness of Concrete Art, an association that might at first seem obvious. After all, if this truly <\/span>is the Information Age, then the topic of perception and what we do with it remains as fraught <\/span>as ever: \u201cWhat am I seeing? An image? A space? Is this inside, or is it outside? Am I behind <\/span>this or in front of it? What am I looking at, and what does it mean? How do I decide how to <\/span>feel about what I see?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Koliusis pays close attention to the way we perceive and the approach we take to the visible, <\/span>be it real or artificial. In this respect, many of his works and also his installation for <\/span>Foundation DKM are occasions for reflection, and this in a two-fold sense. They call for <\/span>pausing, slowing down, demand a willingness to constantly change \u00abfocal lengths\u00bb, a <\/span>flexibility of the eye and of the intellect.<\/span><\/p>\n


Or as the artist himself put it: \u201cIf creating a sharp image is no problem nowadays, then it\u2019s <\/span>time to embrace the blur.\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n
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Leonhard Emmerling<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Translation: Amy Patton<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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1<\/span> See Nikolaus Koliusis, <\/span>Ortsangabe<\/span> (Stuttgart: Hospitalhof Stuttgart, 1999), 78.<\/span>2<\/span> See ibid., 98\u2013103 and Britta E. Buhlmann (ed.), <\/span>1. Liga: Ausstellungsreihe der Pfalzgalerie <\/span>Kaiserslautern 1999<\/span> (Heidelberg: Kehrer, 1999), 58\u201363.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NIKOLAUS KOLIUSIS (AT, DE)
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