ANNA VOGEL – GIVE BACK THE KINGDOM
2014-08-18Vogel’s works function intuitively for the most part. The theme of Give Back the Kingdom – without sounding any religious or environmental overtones – has to do with the idea of a lost kingdom in a Biblical sense. The works of the exhibition focus on the nonchalance with which we treat the world, the unintended vestiges that we leave behind in it, the fleeting and superficial manner in which we perceive it. Here lifeless roadways stretch across unspecific landscapes. Rubbed-out, scratched oceans subside at the horizon. Forests can only be dimly recognized behind thick lines. In a few works, the landscapes have completely entered the realm of ornament and abstraction. In others, they take on post-apocalyptic aspects: Blood red and white clouds of fire-extinguishing sand float disquietingly in the atmosphere, as if they had been emitted not by airplanes, but by an invisible force. An aircraft carrier drifts homelessly upon the seas. At the edges of these pictures, in their instances of faint blurriness, their occasionally visible pixelation and color distortions, the noise of the atmosphere becomes clearly perceptible. The dynamic lines and scratches of the works point toward the inescapable slipping out of control to which our memory is subject in a world of constant acceleration.
The investigation of these contents is accompanied by a richly imaginative playing with the medium of photography that self-confidently transcends the traditional borders of the genre. Vogel herself took some of the photographs on which the works are based; she found others on the Internet or created them herself with a computer. She subjects her motifs to a large number of analog and digital processes of image editing. She retouches certain visual elements or alters the pictorial composition. She makes use of traditional collage technique, expands the photographic space with the help of drafting tools, and is not afraid to scratch the picture surface in a mechanical way.
Opposite – Untitled, 2014
Exhibition runs through to August 30th, 2014
Sprüth Magers Berlin
Oranienburger Straße 18
D-10178
Berlin
