Kirstin Arndt
Tight corners Loose lines
Opening: February 23rd – April 6th, 2018
Reception: Thursday 22nd February, 2018, 6–8pm
Kirstin Arndt, Untitled, 2007, truck tarpaulin, 135 x 135 x 30 cm. Photo: Achim Kukulies
Green On Red Gallery is delighted to present the first solo show in the gallery and in Ireland by Kirstin Arndt (b. Germany, 1961) called Tight corners Loose lines
Arndt brings to her mixture of sharp and flowing industrial materials a predilection for clean and colourful forms, at times inviting the viewer to interact with or even to recompose her work. Her sculptures, made from a wide variety of readily available industrial materials, fold, bend, fall or crease in space depending on the support or the effects of gravity on her limp or resistant forms.
She has previously exhibited with Green On Red Gallery in Material Pleasures, in 2004 and Future, 2017
Ralf Christofori has written how Kirstin Arndt has a very keen sense of the aesthetic in
everyday things. She searches for and finds her materials among common or garden building supplies – shielding fleece, barrier tape, plastic containers, shower curtains, and the like. And throughout this the Düsseldorf artist references the historical sources of Concrete Art. Kirstin Arndt does not simply present the materials she uses, they are as it were “re-informed” by her: She releases the things from their original functional contexts, gives them form, and lends them a new purpose.
In her untitled piece from 2007, she has taken industrially manufactured truck tarpaulins, complete with their functional hooks and eyes, and hung them on the wall. Quite profane, but composed most exactly to produce a charged effect. A tarpaulin coated in matt silver in the shape of a square hangs directly on the wall; to the right the silver gives way to a shiny green, thus loosening up the feeling of a two-dimensional panel painting.
Kirstin Arndt manages to approach found objects with a heightened sensitivity and attention, as both an artist and a beholder. The silver tarpaulin advances to become a monochrome picture surface, the green tarpaulin is fixed in such a way that its right-hand side evokes a Baroque arrangement of folds. In this way the work literally evolves an inner dynamism that does not simply distract our gaze on second sight from perceiving a mere “thing in itself”. The effect is astonishing – not least because this art undermines the viewer’s expectations by the simplest of means. This is clearly one of the great visual or aesthetic strengths in Kirstin Arndt’s works. But the true consequence of this piece only reveals itself once one leaves the perceptual level in order to bring to mind the artistic concept behind it. The artist draws on the underpinnings of Concrete Art and transgresses them by taking them literally and enriching them by a clever marriage with the concept of the readymade. That this marriage may truly be made in heaven and not of the shotgun variety is revealed impressively in Kirstin Arndt’s works.
Hommage an das Quadrat, 2009, . p. 70/71, Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch, Germany. (Translated from German.)
Kirstin Arndt, Untitled, 2015, stainless steel (1mm), powder-coated (signal white), per module 120 x 40 x 40 cm
Select Solo Shows
2018 Green On Red Gallery, Dublin, Ire, LOODS12, Gent, B (mit Vincent de Roder) Galerie Gisela Clement, Bonn, PS projectspace, Amsterdam, NL, 2016/17 Fuhrwerkswaage, Köln (Kat.), 2015 Galerie Kim Behm, Frankfurt, 2012 Galerie Gudrun Fuckner, Ludwigsburg, DE (with Philippe Richard), 2011Galerie Olschewski & Behm, Frankfurt a. M., DE (with Stephen Bambury), 2010 Galerie 5räume, Ludwigsburg, DE (with Andreas Reiter Raabe), 2009 Projektraum, Galerie Hamish Morrison, Berlin, DE Kunstverein Nürtingen, DE (cat.), 2008 Retour de Paris, Institut Francais, Stuttgart, DE (cat.), 2007 Studio A, Museum Gegenstandsfreier Kunst, Otterndorf, DE (cat.), 2006 process room, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, IRE,2005 Galerie Michael Sturm, Stuttgart, DE, 2004 Musée des Beaux-Arts de Mulhouse, FR (cat.), 2003 Galerie BURO EMPTY, Amsterdam, NL Kunstverein Neuhausen/Fildern, DE, 2002 Galerie der Stadt Fellbach, DE, 2001 Heidelberger Kunstverein, DE (cat.), Galerie Michael Sturm, Stuttgart, DE, 2000 Musée de Valence (Art 3), FR (cat.), Städtische Galerie Villingen-Schwenningen, DE (cat.)
Select Group Shows
2018 Backstage 2, Galerie Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, orten, E-Werk, Freiburg (cat.), Backstage 3, Galerie Thomas Rehbein, Köln,MOMU (Fashion Museum), Antwerpen, B, 2017 Future, Green On Red Gallery, Dublin, Ire, Vier Positionen aus vier Orten, Kunstverein Nürtingen (cat.), Backstage 1, Galerie Sofie van de Velde, Antwerpen, B, Reduzieren als Verdichtung, Galerie Mathias Güntner, Hamburg, Triple point, FONDATION FIMINCO, Paris, 2016 Modi des Minimierens, Galerie Gisela Clement, Bonn, From Scratch, Picura, Dordrecht, NL, 2015 Paper V, Zeichnung, Clement & Schneider Galerie, Bonn, Standard International, Post Spatial Devices #2, Berlin, Petra Rinck Galerie, Düsseldorf, Museum gegenstandsfreier Kunst, Otterndorf (cat.), INTRO, Clement & Schneider Galerie, Bonn, Thoughts Around the Black Square, Museum Vasarely, Budapest, HU (cat.), that’s all, Galerie Sofie van de Velde, Antwerpen, B , Die Kunst der Faltung, Kunstraum Alexander Bürkle, Freiburg (cat.) Construct!, Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin, just that, Galerie Martina Detterer, Frankfurt a. M., Die Kunst der Faltung, Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt (cat.), Collector‘s Choice Only! - MATERIAL, Kunstraum Alex. Bürkle, Freiburg (cat.), Das, was man so hat. No. 2, „Dahlhausen viral“, Kunstmuseum Ahlen, 2014 Schwarz, Galerie Rehbein, Köln, DE, Beyond the wall, Kunstverein Bochum, DE, Papier/Paper IV, Collage, kunstgaleriebonn, Bonn, DE, 2013Kunstraum Düsseldorf, 5x3, Düsseldorf, DE, Wieder sehen, Museum gegenstandsfreier Kunst, Otterndorf, DE, PLASTIK, kunstgaleriebonn, Ausstellungsprojekt in Köln, DE, Novecento mai visto/ Highlights from the Daimler Art Collection,Museo di Santa Giulia, Brescia, I, 2012 DRAWING QUOTE! Pigna Project Space, Rom, I (digitaler Kat.), Arndt/Fock/Oberthaler/Schulz - Andratx open II, CCA Museum, Andratx, Mallorca, ES, Arndt/Craig/ Pfeifle, Galerie Gudrun Fuckner, Ludwigsburg, DE, Zeigen. Audiotour von Karin Sander, Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, DE, 2011 Private/Corporate VI, Daimler Art Collection, Berlin, DE, American Abstract Artists/Deutscher Künstlerbund/Galerie oqbo, Berlin, DE, Professorale, Schloss Untergröningen, DE, Galerie Gudrun Fuckner, Ludwigsburg, DE
Kirstin Arndt is represented in Germany by Galerie Gisela Clement, Bonn and Galerie Kim Behm, Frankfurt.