Detlef Hartung – Georg Trenz

BLACKBOX
Gallery Seippel
Cologne 2004

The neutral gallery space (white cube) triggered the idea of developing two works for the Black Box exhibition in which visitors become creative protagonists. Blindtext (Blind Text) shows quotations from each of Katharina Fritsch, Jean Paul Sartre and Plato. When viewers walk into the typographical projection by ten slide projectors, their shadows cover parts of the text, while other textual fragments remain visible in the shaded area. The shadows move on various textual planes, thus constantly reinterpreting the texts.

 
 
 
 
 
“Blindtext”, 2004;
11 projectors, pillar, varying measures

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project room

“Lichten”, 2004;
light–spaceinstallation
11 projectors, pillar, varying measures

In the beginning was the word.
Or space, questions? Light, stone? Problematical birth situations mean that Detlef Hartung‘s and Georg Trenz‘s projects are usually described in brief as light installations, even though they are much more about installed, visual reflection on human beings, people who have created places for themselves whose aggressions they no longer understand and are not in control of É
In LICHTEN the principles of Hartung and Trenz‘s art are compressed into a confined space that can be transported in this case, as they have been idealized for a white cube.

This means that the task allotted to recipients in the process of transferring idea and work into three dimensions is more lucidly conveyed than can be the case in an existing place shaped by history and use. In the white cube, visual multi–dimensionality and openness to etymological experience are joined by the cancellation of tautological imposition within the projected LICHTEN (LIGHTING) concept. The desolate heap of words is penetrated and dissolved by physical proximity, until the ontological thicket lightens at last.
Olaf Müller, 2005

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