A walk through the exhibition PAPER ART 7

Let me translate a citation from the official folder:

"electric paper" explores the means of expression of the artistica material paper, combined with electricity and electronic media: Paper and Light, Video, Sound, Movement and Interaction.

OK, electricity is not so new in our part of the world, but the electronic media still are a mistery to the most of us.

The artists' installations, the speaches at the opening, the texts, they all demonstrate the baffled helplessness, when being confronted with this new Media. Everybody only understands 'Internet' when they talk about New Media, and because nobody is so sure about what he says but everybody means to be obliged not to show this, the emperor is naked and his dresses are of many colors... but my comments are uttered already.

Paper as a media of artistic expression, paper as material, paper with an aesthetic of it's own: each of the artists worked differently with this material, each of them did justice to the material more or less, and some of them just had no real idea what to do with it.

Let me present here some of the works.

The self-referencing attitude


Marie-Jo LafontaineMarie-Jo Lafontaine presents an installation, which at the first look causes an aesthetical joy, but reveals it's emptyness quite fast:

a metall construction, covered by paper, fixed with Scotch, a light inside: an overdimensioned night lamp in the shade of an extraterrestrian intruder...

The pseudo - critical attitude

Helga Griffiths interpretation of paper as a media of information, surrounding us, Helga Griffiths presenting idols, overwhelming us, serving as a wall paper at least...

Very busy, she decorated a whole room with high class magazine covers and she shows the filmed lack of orientation of the visitor on monitors.
Control Cameras film him when trying to get information from the papers. The flood of information rests in cold beauty and without content. OK, but? Expropriate Murdoch?

Fukuichi Yoshida
The lucid - naked attitude

Fukuichi Yoshida places 100 shopping bags in accurate order, with painted insides, which start to move and crisp, regulated by quartz watches.

The spectator leaves the room, untouched.
He can continue his quest unharmed.

The didactic - reduced attitude

Dmitry PrigovDmitrij Prigov, participant of the Dueren Biennale for the second time, confronts a hill of journals, crowned by blood or wine or wax, with a black circle on the wall.

The circle is leaky, light finds it's way, but the paper stays hermetic, gives no answer, serves as a table for an absent drinker, who left a red trace.

Prigov, a Poet, an author, works with paper. Paper keeps his poems, offering them durability.
This journals don't tell about poetry, the tell the price of sugar and announce the newest special offers.

The black circle is open for phantasy and explanation, the printed paper gives us nothing to interpretate. The Printed stays speechless.


The text - referential attitude

Dan Senn Dan Senn created a very special room, a world where paper rolls, lights and texts have their own life.

Directed by an invisible hand, they move and the visitor tries to identify the control mechanism. Without success, but he is distracted from reading of the texts, which are hold directly into his face.

I leave the room with a bad conscience, maybe I missed something not reading the texts, but I take with me an image, an image of a self-referring room.


The sound of paper
Vladimir Tarasov
Vladimir Tarasov is drummer, composer, artist. He created Nocturne for Paper, an installation which gives justice to the estethics of paper. Paper bears the image and produces sound.

One of the very few works in this exhibition, which fulfills the claim to discover the expression of paper.

This installations has it's own page.


Paper is paper is paper

Quin Yufen

Paper was invented in China and China is also the homeland of the traditional art of paper cuts.

Paper as material for artistic production, that must be very familiar, I think fo Lü Chen Zhong for instance, to a chinese artist.

Quin Yufen created a very impressive room, a narrow corridor, restricted by high boards, filled with abundant paper. Immediately you associate this with boards, filled with files, but this association is cut by the tenderness of the material, which on the other hand gives the impression of heaviness and solidity, like a rock.

This tension of tenderness and hugeness, that is a present to us by Quin Yufen.


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