IMPRESSIONS, PERCEPTIONS AND IMPRINTS
“I’m interested in the fleeting glance, which touches the world and yet doesn’t fix an image of it. “ Gabriela Disler
For several months, the Basel based artist GD examined the architecture of the Kunsthalle Wil with its particular atmospheric qualities and details, concentrating her investigations specifically on the changing intensity of the light in various areas.
She made a photographic record of the ceaselessly changing effects of the light as it altered her perception of the architectural space. This provided the basis and raw material for her three light installations in the loggia, hall and dais.
Glow Light
Thirteen bulbs with simple porcelain sockets, randomly distributed in the loggia appear as will-o’-the wisps. In the semi dark space the dots of light seem to float above the ground, accentuating the space, whilst the looping cables serve the lights as the routes serve the trees. Stepping into this transitional space of the Kunsthalle, the visitor is confronted with a “light poem”. Analogously to the way in which the pentameter in a poem provides the structure, the placement of the sockets defines the rhythm guiding our experience of the space. The glow of the lights is freed from its material condition and is transformed into raw energy. This calm glow is repeatedly interrupted by the floodlights of passing cars and sometimes there is an interplay with the lights of the projections through the hall windows. This intermittent disruption, in contrast to the constant glowing, appears as an unintended interaction and to a certain extent it creates a transient enrichment. Allowing one’s gaze to wonder over the fields of lights triggers distant memories of scenes in nature, such as the bracken of the moorland, or the waterlilies of a pond.To arouse an individual response from the viewer is one of the artist’s concerns: “To me it is about finding out about the relationship to the real for every visible space and one’s own personal sensual response”.
Sphere
Multilayered projections on hanging, transparent sheets, fill and obscure the architecture with reflections and interruptions and transform the whole into a kaleidoscopic and magical “light space”.
The installation “sphere” uses images recorded by GD on her visits to the gallery in order to capture particular light conditions with her camera. “From the beginning, I was fascinated with the architecture of the building and its intriguing changing light, how the light revealed itself, where it lodged itself, how it interacted with the space. I wanted to capture how the light, which entered the building through the semitransparent casing, created transient “light drawings”, layer upon layer on the windows, floor, walls, breaking up on the corners and spreading across the shiny reflecting surfaces. I observed the translucency of the transitions from the outside to the inside and I experienced how light filled the space and how it vanished from it”.
Like a circular visual dance, the images projected by the two beamers onto the transparent areas are of varying intensity and in combination with the prevailing daylight, the effects shift from the more to the less succinct. They break up and overlap. Stepping into the space one becomes part of the “projection area” and so is a participant in the rich and many faceted interplay of light and shadow, experiencing thereby, the ceaselessly changing patterns as a part of oneself.
Clearing
The richly accentuated variations created by the light falling on the upper floor through the skylight, is the starting point of GDs intervention in the podium. The photographs depicting
how light falls on surfaces in particular daylight situations, how it rests in the niche between
wall and floor, or gently touches the border of the balustrade are formally defined. The light images are reduced to pure form and thereby resemble an abstract documentation of the ebb and flow of the light. Transparent sheets from which has been cut a representation of how
the light falls onto the surface, unfolds like a drawing in space from the rear wall into the
room; the individual but connected components running into the space like a free-flowing
spring from its source. The transparent and colourless material catches the light in its turn and reflects it, delicately shimmering, so that it gives the impression of a rivulet or perhaps splinters
of ice. The “embeddedness” within the visible beams of the gallery lends the title “clearing”
a referential function, drawing one’s imagination to the context of the woods: rays of sunlight trickling through the moving foliage, dancing amongst the undergrowth and covering the floor with shiny spots of light. Such idyllic natural scenes have fascinated artists for centuries and inspired painterly interpretations. GD however, leaves the illustrative behind, showing instead an interpretation of the marks created by the sun in an unusual way. These extracted forms convince as an abstract representation of the flowing and transient nature of light.
Essence
The essence of the exhibition is distilled in a series of Heliogravures, which GD has produced based on her photographic explorations. Rich in nuances, these limited edition prints capture and outlive the intensive examination by the artist of the light-space-light-phenomenon. The light twinkles mysteriously on the paper, giving no information about it’s creation, form or relationship to the space. The patterns grow out of the dark, threatening to disintegrate at any moment. With her work GD has lent the place a certain sensual and poetic quality. The installations interlace, forming a totality with which to engage the visitor. Together the three different installations function as homage to the fascinating and versatile nature of light, each space evoking a different perceptual response.
Gabrielle Obrist, Curator Kunsthalle Wil, publication folder
