Wo der Raum vorbeifliegt

“Wo der Raum vorbeifliegt” is the first joint exhibition by Mannheim-based artists Katinka Eichhorn (b. 1993) and Jordan Madlon (b. 1989). While Eichhorn works primarily with paper and fabric and begins by thinking in terms of drawing, Madlon describes his view as painterly. Lines and outlines are prominent features in Eichhorn’s work. Madlon’s compositions are made from cloth, wood, and aluminum and rely on overlapping shapes, colours and proportions. They share a common approach to materials and a similar occupation with image-making in relation to space. The exhibition title chosen by the two artists is an adapted line from the poem “Unaufhaltsam” (1994) by Hilde Domin. “Where the word flies by” is adapted in that the word “word” was replaced by “space”, thus, signaling a shift from an analytical category of language to an experiential category of space. Therefore, the works or individual visual elements are not signs to be interpreted. Instead, the focus is on the exploration of spatial relationships. Space becomes a dynamic phenomenon of semantic ambiguity. It is not only about the physical exhibition space. It also concerns the distance between the works, their proximity to each other, their connections, the omissions within the compositions, and negative space. Focusing attention on the in-between means developing an understanding of things constituted by movement and mediation. Thus, the exhibition’s selection and arrangement of works are subordinate to these categories. Here, the objects occupy the wall or floor in surprising ways. Although some are relatively large, nothing is monumental about them. Placed a bit too high or too far down by conventional standards, they seem more en passant, or fleeting. For example, Eichhorn’s works on paper mimic the texture of fabric through repeated energetic strokes on the paper’s surface. Madlon’s wood and fabric combination also suggests movement. And not just through the fluid quality of the wooden forms. The fabric, too, seems to stir, to rear up like waves, although it was pasted flat with a brush directly onto the wall. It is as though it were there to distract one from the fact that two objects are super-imposed. Memorable images are created that quickly make you forget that they are compositions of three-dimensional objects.

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