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David Lindberg |
The Baukunst Galerie opens on Wednesday, the 26st of April from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., a great solo-exhibition with works of the American artist David Lindberg. “Objects” is the first exhibition of his opus in Germany at all. At the opening Georg Elben, arthistorian and curator, will give an introduction in Lindberg’s artistic work, which has already gained great attention in the Netherlands, United States and Italy – not at least because of its unique materiality and shape forming.
Lindberg was born 1964 in Iowa, USA, and studied ‘Fine Arts’ at the University of Minnesota from 1982 to 1984. Afterwards he succeeded with ‚Environmental Design‘ at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and ‚Architecture’ at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. His works has already been exhibited in several international exhibitions – among others in museums and galleries in Stockholm, Verona, Zurich, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Utrecht and New York.
David Lindbergs opus is characterised by his experimental use of ultra-modern, industrial produced materials. His works, which are neither sculptures nor paintings but ‘objects’, are based on a complex synthesis of coherent substances, such as fiberglass fabric, foam, clingwrap, filling material and composite. Besides that in some objects he also adds everyday artefacts, as plastic bags, boxes and newsprint. At the end of the manufacturing process Lindberg covers the whole work with UV resistant epoxy – a resin which is also used for the sealing of boats – and adds pigment to it. After harden the epoxy-pigment-coating covers the diverse materials like a transparent membrane with a smooth, glossy surface. This way the used materials look like there were put under a magnifying-glass and get a new, aesthetical quality. Anyway that does not bring forth the attention of the beholder to the materiality itself. David Lindbergs works rather evoke something organic, biomorphous and alive in our mind.
When we consider it purely physical, the epoxy irreversible ‘freezes‘ the final of the manufacturing process when it hardens. Nevertheless the created artefact looks like it could change its aggregation state again any moment. This applies especially to the objects which are placed on the floor of the exhibition room. In their inside the covered materials and everyday artefacts are just barely recognisable. The transparent coating of resin encloses them like a cocoon, which seems to be shortly before braking off and fulfilling a metamorphosis of its shape.
The reliefs covered with countless beads of resin seem to be hard and fluid at the same time. Light is braking itself within as in drops of water and unveils different coloured layers. The works remind us of rock formations as we know them from stalactite caves. Because of their synthetic colour and their special texture they simultaneously evoke associations with cell populations on an agarplate – in real life just visible under a microscope.
Those objects which look like colour thrown in space are also unique in their own way. They remind us of snapshots of a split second which allow to make happenings visible that are normally not perceivably for the human eye. In both works – the coloured curtain falling from the ceiling and the objects which stick out from the wall – David Lindberg fixes the moment of the fluid colour-flow in a three-dimensional form.
At the same time the amorphous, often hollow and flesh-coloured objects arouse the idea of something organic, botanical or animal. This applies to the wall object as well, which is similar to a conglomerate of wasps or honeycombs. The mirrors attached at the back of the tubes divide the image of the beholder into particles. This way he is pointed back to his own body.
All the exhibited objects have in common, that they seem to be artificial and natural, familiar and strange, repulsive and attractive at the same time. This goes along with a strong haptic quality: We want to touch them, apprehend and perceive them with all our senses. It is this ambivalence of David Lindbergs works, which provokes simultaneously irritation and great fascination in our mind.
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