STEIN 158132 I-III]

Essay by Markus Redl

Galerie Kandlhofer is pleased to present Markus Redl and Maximilian Prüfer amongst other artists at Art Düsseldorf.

From a block of Statuario marble, which has natural fractures, i.e., surfaces that resulted from quarrying, a pinnacle or rather, a tower-like spire that displays formal similarities to a Gothic pinnacle, was sculpted on an off-centre axis. At the base – the surface from which the tower arises – are slightly deformed, portal-like shapes topped with ornamental pediments. They are reminiscent of socalled gables (a structural element of Gothic architecture). The tower tapers at the top, it is textured with lines, along which bud-like shapes emerge, which evoke the ornamental and structural elements of a Gothic pinnacle: stylized carvings of curled leaves, buds, or flowers that art history describes as „crockets“.

The tower gets narrower to form a spire, but it does not come into being because a crossbeam puts an abrupt end to it. The ascending shape, the vertical movement towards the sky, is limited by a frame. It seems as though the tower was held in a vice that had reduced its natural size. Furthermore, the interplay of the forms of the base, the tower, the openings, and the frame, respectively, remind one of a ship‘s hull with masts and sails. The buds turn into bells on a tower that sets and keeps a ship of fools on course. Sticking to this image, one can find the inscription at the stern of the ship: INTERREGNUM A and on the sail, which is reversed relative to the hull, there is the inscription & EIN on one side and SCHIFF. - INTERREGNUM A & EIN SCHIFF - on the other.

The title of the sculpture Mediazän I-III (mediacene I-III) could therefore not only imply that it is a geological time interval, but also that this is merely a transitional phase, an interregnum. Given that the suffix „-cene“ (originally from Greek koinós, new, recent, unusual) is used to form terms for various geologic periods and that the sculpture has formal references to a ship as well as to Gothic architecture, the combination with „media“ (originally from Latin medium, middle, mediator, carrier) inevitably raises questions about the correlations between the dawn of the modern age in the late Gothic period, and the great upheavals of a media-dominated world, that are being fuelled by digitalisation. With its engravings, title, and footnote, the sculpture thus functions as an enigmatic apparatus that, when operated, releases stories that can render relationships between past and future comprehensible. Detecting correlations between phases of upheaval in the past and current events can help to present the apocalyptic moods as well as the euphoria regarding the future in a more neutral light.

Thus, there is a continuous interregnum, an interim government, the period between the departure of a ruler, and old, prevailing problems, and the appointment of a successor and the new difficulties that this entails. When measured in terms of geological periods, cultural manifestations are little more than interregna and the stir they cause mere regional peculiarities. But can these concepts be extrapolated? Perhaps not in terms of our behaviour’s impact within a globally interconnected world, but certainly in terms of our assessment of our capabilities. Human hubris and the associated view of the extent to which the human mind controls its world seem to be a reliable constant.

In his book „ Was ist diesmal anders? Wirtschaftskrisen und die neuen Kunstmärkte“ (What is different this time? Economic Crises and the New Art Markets), Dirk Boll addresses how profound the radical changes of our time are, how profound the world is about to change as a result of digital developments. Production, commerce, transport, education, the environment, all these things will be transformed by advancing digitalisation and thus reshape the lives of all human beings to an unprecedented extent.

The quote “Media Art, before the term existed“, from a book on an exhibition in Berlin about the Gothic period, describes how thoroughly the changes of the 15th century were. The development of printmaking and printing were crucial for the course of the entire European history, for commerce, the dissemination of information, and the canonisation of leitmotifs, their transmission, and the formation of cultural identity. During this period, religious communities create centres in which capital can be concentrated. Craftsmen organise themselves into guilds and establish the framework for practising their trade. Sculptors, painters, goldsmiths do not work alone and not in an individual style, but in workshops that have a cooperative character and pursue the implementation of a form of appearance that we would call corporate identity today. For the first time, interdisciplinary collaborations are taking place that are directed towards a common goal. Engravers, glass painters, carvers, carpenters, stonemasons, founders, silver- and goldsmiths, chasers, and many more are jointly committed to the manufacturing of a final product that should not only astonish but simply overwhelm the people of the time. How intense the experience of a Gothic cathedral must have been back then may be hard to comprehend today. Vibrant light, colours, shrines, the sound of organs, an architecture that stretches towards the sky and seems to dissolve into unfathomable tracery, and all that for the praise to God; while the heralds of the Copernican revolution were approaching fast, to irreversibly dismantle this fantastic architecture of unlimited power. Now imagine that we were at a similar point today, and in 550 years there will be an exhibition about our time, a part of the Mediazän, somewhere between I and III. It will have been a ship of fools; just like the sculpture.