Floaters are little floating particles in the vitreous body of the eye that are sometimes visible, polluting our field of vision against a bright background, blotches or streaks that are actually part of our organ of perception.

This exhibition presents four artists who each employ different means for their respective image production. Ellie de Verdier's works, for example, are sewn. They relate as much to photography as to painting, oscillating back and forth between actual and represented three-dimensionality. Milena Büsch paints over entire pages of a catalogue by a well-known colleague and titles the piece “Für andere die Arbeit machen” (Doing other people’s work). Demian Kern's paintings, on the other hand, draw on more tangible scenarios. They depict a wide assortment of things: mailboxes, pipes and brick walls, chess pieces, and patterns of movement, all the while maintaining an overview of their own construction. Julian Tromp uses fabric as his canvas, applying indirect, indexed gestures that accentuate traces of previous use.

Individual expression recedes in favour of a precise analysis of the conditions of the image. The exhibited works are presented along concordant themes, but they also pose questions about the image itself from different angles. What constitutes an image, what media and hybrid forms does it manifest in, how does it connect to the outside world? How is it concentrated within its own frame, to what extent does it engage with others? The works fluctuate between the immediate and the fictional, the material and the symbolic.

While images today seem infinitely available, their manifestations in the digital realm start to take on a similitude. In the exhibition, moments of difference emerge vis-à-vis this visual noise. The specific formal choices within the pieces and their presentation collide with the preset visual format of daily life. They contaminate the code of contemporary images from within.

Text: Anette Freudenberger

Sujet: Milena Büsch, Für andere die Arbeit machen, oil on paper, 2020/21, Courtesy Felix Gaudlitz Galerie