6
Künstler/in
Axel Koschier
(geb. 1980 in Wien)
Date2021
ClassificationsMalerei
MediumAquarell, Baumwolle, Holz
Dimensions150 × 10 × 2 cm
Credit LineArtothek des Bundes
Object number28539
DescriptionIn semi-automatic processes, the artist Axel Koschier takes a step back as author. He splits his role into the facilitator on the one hand and the executing worker on the other. In the interweaving of the various processual logics and logistics traditionally assigned to different artistic dispositifs, the coordinates shift. In this way, he opens up space for the materials and tools to react spontaneously with each other. On an affective level, the works have a particular tenderness in some instances, and the exact opposite in others. Whether in the choice of materials - gauzy translucent parachute silk or dirty used dish towels as image supports, watercolors in lovely palettes or construction site dirt as paint application - or in the choice of the conceptual structure of interventions between “what you see is what you see” and hermetic technical and aesthetic inside jokes, Koschier regularly makes a game of provocatively challenging the expectations that participants in the art world have of the components used in artistic production.
For his exhibition märzzimmeraprilzimmer at WONNERTH DEJACO, Vienna, Koschier has developed a site-specific intervention into the gallery space at Ballgasse 6. The title translates as “marchroomaprilroom” and refers to two specific colour palettes the artist has taken from the book “A Dictionary of Color Combinations” by the Japanese artist, teacher and designer Sanzo Wada, originally published in the 1930s. The book presents 72 color patterns themed on the Japanese seasons, six for every month. Koschier used a “March”-pattern and an “April”-pattern, respectively, for painting a horizontal strip along the bottom ofthe walls in the gallery’s two exhibition rooms. Thus, Koschier situates his exhibition during the time period of the months of March and April.
The horizontality of this sort of skirting board finds a strong counterweight in the verticality of the light sculptures that meet the eye of the beholder with their harsh brightness. Koschier took the gallery’s light modules out of their rails on the ceiling, placing them on a specifically built construction that allows to plant them in the gallery’s electrical floor sockets.
The shape of the works hanging on the walls follows the format of the upright light modules. Their creation is also deeply entangled with the painting on the walls. In a first step, Koschier attached stripes of cotton along the bottom edges of the walls. He then used watercolors in the aforementioned color patterns to paint onto the cotton, and through the cotton onto the walls. Once taken off the walls, the painted cotton strips were mounted on wooden stretchers. Each of the rooms contains the same number of wall pieces as there are light modules in it.
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