Curatorial Text / Kostka Gallery / Kathrin Köster (DE): ex plica in sepia mania

KOSTKA GALLERY

presents the exhibition

KATHRIN KÖSTER (DE): ex plica in sepia mania

curator: Zuzana Jakalová
opening: 11.9., 7pm
exhibition duration: 11.9. – 3. 10. 2014

A fold is a beautifully strange thing; a thing seemingly out of sight of everyday struggles. In the banal moments of life, it can sometimes be almost invisible – a crumpled pillow after a long night, or a wrinkled shirt when you’d like to look just fine. Other times, it can be almost substantial – like folding the corner of a page of a book so that we don‘t forget where we last left off, or finding a creased banknote in your pocket when you least expect it. At a more abstract level, however, a fold can imply a lot of things – unfolding or concealment, repetition and multiplication, impermanence and instability. On the contrary, it can also be a metaphor for endless possibilities and variabilities, or for natural geometry – that of ocean waves, rocks and sediments, wind and fire.

The above mentioned metaphors for a fold or folded and layered matter could be perceived as the inspiration for the exhibition project ex plica in sepia mania, which the German artist Kathrin Köster prepared for Kostka Gallery. In her practice, Köster often explores the relationship between space in its general meaning, and a place or architecture as specific variations of it. Her installations turn towards the viewer, creating a space for the body and its physical confrontation with the work or the surrounding environment. Köster approaches all of these through painting, which becomes the point from which she further elaborates the above mentioned.
 
Ex plica in sepia mania is a development on her recent works, where she has experimented with painting on loose fabrics. Thousands of folds create the structure of large-format paintings hanging from the ceiling of the gallery, and make it a special kind of spatial fabric origami. The multiplicity and variability of both small and large fragments of the almost monochrome painting, and the loose, flexible form on one side attract the viewer to its gentleness, almost beckoning him to touch it. The monumentality of the hanging canvases, however, create a silent yet active tension between the subtle patterns and distinctive format of the curtain. Köster’s canvas welcomes the viewer to a vivid radius, while it is as well creating space for the other two visual pieces: an author's book and a stencil sprayed on a nearby wall. This asymmetric deployment of the three communicating parts meet at the basic point - each of these pieces is silently saying „plica ex plica", each of the fold follows another fold.

Kathrin Köster (⃰ 1981) studied at Professor Lothar Baumgarten’s studio at the Universität der Künste Berlin. She is a DAAD alumni, and in 2013 she was granted a fellowship for a residency in the Triangle Arts Foundation in New York City. The starting point of her work is painting. Paintings, often combined with sculptural and architectural fragments, are mostly shown in installation settings. The installations become the immediate response to the content of the paintings themselves.
 
The exhibition and residency of Kathrin Köster was kindly supported by the Czech German Fund of Future. As a part of the exhibition, MeetFactory has published an author’s book of Kathrin Köster.

MeetFactory is supported in 2014 by a grant from the City of Prague amounting to 6.500.000 CZK.

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Contacts and more information:

Christina Gigliotti - PR & Marketing
christina@meetfactory.cz
+ 420 776 798 202

Zuzana Jakalová – Curator of the MeetFactory AiR Program
zuzana@meetfactory.cz
+ 420 776 232 924