In place of absence

KRISTOFFER ARDEÑA / IN PLACE OF ABSENCE

13.March – 3.May 2010 Galerie Ulf Saupe HYPERLINK "http://www.galeriesaupe.com" www.galeriesaupe.com Torstrasse 75 10119 Berlin Germany Kristoffer Ardeña (Philippines, 1976) has been working during the last years on several artistic projects conceptualizing human behavior. For that purpose he conceives an epistemological procedure that performs cultural traditions within a concrete cultural frame, but relating the whole mechanism to another bigger one: our globalized world.

Thus meaning, related to conventional situations, that is based on conventional cognitive structures, becomes newly defined. Consequently, new answers arise and at their turn cognitive structures expand. The sphere of consideration when thinking about the dual and dynamic phenomena life/art offers the viewer/participant a chance to look outward to an art practice that is able to exist in between diverse topographic conceptualizations.

Ardeña’s operative strategy subtly plugs in aesthetic energy into ideas that live in our heads about everyday life. He not only tries to resolve some limitations when conceiving a way of poetic interaction between art practice and anthropology, but includes in the game, a new and fascinating issue that covers all of us like a blanket: our contemporary horizon.

Like everybody else, the thing that fascinates me about Germany is its recent history. We read about it in books and see it on TV over and over again. This creates a sense of detachment from the past and creates a tourist-gaze.

This gaze seeps into the tourism industry geared for foreign consumption. It's past is converted into a fetish for consumerism: from serious collectors looking for WWII memorabilia, non-German artists using historical objects in their artworks and tourists buying pieces of the wall. We even see used German military uniforms on sale at the Rastro flea market in Madrid made into urban street fashion.

So, in thinking of the exhibition in Berlin, I wanted to literally be a tourist and focus on the fetishization of Germany's memory primarily on the most stereotypical objects like military paraphernalia, coins, etc.

It is not my intent to directly critic, to resolve, to talk about the historical manifestations of these objects. Instead, I am using them as souvenirs with which a tourist, a person from the outside, such as myself, can be able to cultivate a perspective beyond its historical epicenter.

Once There Was a Wall in the Middle of the City Drawing 200 pieces (cement on 23x28 cms sandpaper) Photograph on dibond 16.5 x 12 cms framed (Edition of 3 + 1AP+ 1EP) (Berlin Wall fragment before it was erased) Sculpture (13 x 9 cm / unique piece) (Berlin Wall fragment after it was erased) 2010

Once There was a Wall in the Middle of the City is a work comprising of 200 pieces of sandpaper, sculpture and photo. It is the starting point and main oeuvre of this exhibition.

One of the most obvious and recognizable of all of these objects is the Berlin wall. You can buy pieces of it in tourist shops and even order it on e-bay. My interest lies in how an object of historical significance evolves into something else, in this exhibition, through mass media and tourism. The tourist relates to this object based on how he acquires it.

Like any other souvenir that he may bring back to his home, he displays this object, just as he would the kitschy t-shirts, the porcelain, etc. and tell people about his trip and how he managed to get hold of this piece. Thus, the history embedded within gets another layer of memory attached to it, that of the historical present. In the exhibition are pieces of sandpaper which I have used to "erase" the wall fragment, in so doing, proving how such an object is impossible but at the same time unnecessarily a thing of the past. The wall fragment leaves traces on the sandpaper, and the fragment itself, becomes eroded but seemingly intact. Memory is an attachment that we create in order to give value to our present existence. In the exhibition, the wall fragment merely becomes another art object, a material given an added value by an

artist, and thus, using its historical past to justify a means to an end, much like a tourist justifies it in his cabinet of curiosities.

Other works include an old military helmet, a grey wool blanket used by the Nationale Volksarmee or NVA and a Freiwillige Polizei Reserve uniform all coming from the former German Democratic Republic. Lastly, exhibited is a 1968-deutschmark, year of the German Student Movement (Studentenbewegung also known as the 68er-Bewegung, movement of 1968 or soixante-huitaires).

It is important to know that the complexity does not dwell solely on the historical connotations these objects are impregnated with. It only serves as its pretext. I think it is not an artist’s duty to re-vision history but to offer a vantage point different from itself, not necessarily de-contextualizing it, but proposing an alternative narrative that can coexist with it. Maybe this could be attained through Gestalt or philosophical approximation. In my case, I want to be more specific in referencing narration, not to provide linear subject-author rhetoric, but one that is permeable, inviting the viewer to play with the narrative at hand using history, geography and identity, using different types of memory as the catalyst to activate it. There is no pretense to search for facts, for the truth, by so doing, avoid the pitfall of becoming a pseudo-historian.

By interchanging both roles, artist-as-tourist and the tourist-asartist, have allowed me to play with the inevitabilities of my situation. This enables the performative aspect to generate the narrative.

‘Twas a Gun Sculpture / 8 x 16 x 2,5 cm / unique piece Photograph on dibond 18 x 24 cm framed (Edition of 3 + 1AP+ 1EP) 2010

‘Twas a Gun, is a gun that had been thrown away and buried for 20 years only to resurface oxidized. What attracts me to it is how beautiful it looked because it has a reddish patina. The tourist gaze is an aesthetic gaze. The fact that it is a gun became an important decisive factor as well. Also, the fetish arises from the questions that come with it, was it thrown intentionally, was it used to kill someone, etc. The tourist gaze is a fetish gaze. The gun is left to continue to rust. Memory serves as a tool by which the public can take part of its evolution, not merely the transformation of its materiality but transforming its memory into their own.

‘Twas a Blanket Sculpture (3 pieces / size: variable) unique piece Photograph on dibond 191 x 134 cm framed (Edition of 3 + 1AP+ 1EP) 2010

‘Twas a Blanket, in the exhibition, the blanket is turned back into thread again, with strips of hair fragments of persons who slept on it entangled into the coils of wool. The deconstruction of the blanket to its basic form, its materiality allows the public to create something new with it. Perception is the first step to generating new memories.

For example, the form itself rekindles the public to view these coils of wool to that of a cat playing with it.

‘Twas a Uniform Sculpture (size: variable / unique piece) Photograph on dibond 120 x 84 cms framed (Edition of 3 + 1AP+ 1EP) 2010

The next work ‘Twas a Uniform, finding it was important because there are many military uniforms to choose from. I was looking for something “special”. I wanted to convert the personal story embedded in the uniform into a fetish, a requisite for wanting it. I finally found what I wanted in a store specializing in German military memorabilia. The one who sold it to me told me that the uniform was an American tent during WWII, then because during the postwar it was difficult to find firstgrade material, the tent was made into a military uniform of the Freiwillige Polizei Reserve of the former East Germany. Inside one of the pockets you can find the seal of the company who officially made it.

It has undergone changes over time. It has been patched up several times leaving traces of pieces of cloth not matching the original fabric.

While I un-sewed it, I found a nametag “Müller” on it, must have belonged to this person. In the exhibition I am offering the strips of cloth to be made into another garment.

‘Twas a Helmet Sculpture (23 x 23 x 28 cms / unique piece) Photogaph on dibond 30 x 40 cm framed (Edition of 3 + 1AP+ 1EP) 2010

In ‘Twas a Helmet, someone told someone, that at one point during the postwar some people converted it into a bedside urinal, told someone and told me then we finally told the welder to design a urinal out of the helmet. In this piece, what I wanted to do was to re-create that transformation. Although the helmet-urinal functions, it does not serve this purpose because of the socio-economic context surrounding its environment and more so, the person re-creating it could have easily avoided such a time consuming task, bought a cheap plastic urinal in a convenience store. It’s ulitilitarian failure accommodates the rise of a new function, that of a memorial to the object’s second purpose, that of becoming a bedside urinal. A person, generations after, constructs an object-myth narrative based on memory that has been handed to him from others. For me, the story of how the helmet became a urinal and how this became part of my experience is of the same importance as the physical evidence exhibited. The object shown in the gallery therefore recovers both its functionality when activated by storytelling. It takes on its third function when the public activates their narrative on it.

‘Twas a Coin Photograph and Coin (Deutsch Mark) 18 x 24 cm Unique piece 2010

‘Twas a Coin, is a 1968 1-deutschmark found in Ulf’s home. The coin was placed on the tracks and ran over by the train. This partially erased some of the inscriptions on it.