3G Event with a limited number of visitors at the same time.
Liselotte-Herrmann-Str. 26 (HH)
10407 Berlin
A white, empty room. The black shiny floor fall out of the frame of a classic white cube, which opens up here in a Berlin backyard. The intervention of the artist Thomas Prochnow seems, especially for the visitor who rarely visits the project space IN THE RACK ROOM, to be rather subtle at first glance.
The colorfulness, which is otherwise almost always to be seen in Prochnow’s work, (so in the 2012 realized work CMY or his works in abandoned houses) has here given way to a reflective, thin surface that covers the entire exhibition space.
The conclusion is quickly drawn to Concrete Art, which, with a radical renunciation of the subject, individuality and illusion, took up arms against the traditional conception of art at the beginning of the 20th century. One notices that Prochnow has absorbed, studied and internalized the history of art. Nevertheless, his work has much more than the mere reception and quotation, old, (deceased) masters. He takes up the ideas of an abstract, concrete art and transfers them to the present time. He does not fall into the trap of looping an eternal reference back to himself, but also allows himself to be strongly influenced by the particular place in which the work is (de-)standing. In order for the viewer to fully perceive the work, he must enter it, touch it, and compulsively feel it. Thus, the engagement with artwork begins on a very direct, physical level, and is thus experienced quite immediately, even before intellectual engagement begins.
The fascination is intensified by the reflective, deep black surface, which is only broken by the joints. For Prochnow, the color black is a very important element in his art but also in his personality: “It’s pure, unadulterated, and it always resonates with something radical. Even if mostly in an undertone. Black fits, …it specifies things and exerts a strong attraction on all of us.” Similar to Malevich’s painting, Black Square on a White Ground from 1915, color and its aspects play an important role here. Unlike the Ukrainian modernist master, however, Prochnow does not exaggerate color here, or even sanctify it, but uses it to draw the eye to the ground, which too often plays a subordinate role in art for him. Through these aspects, the art, which is very often ideally and real put on a pedestal and, as it were, modern saints world away, protected from the reverent approach of the viewer, is brought back to the ground of the facts. His art, has no berührungs.ngste, rather it invites to deal with it at eye level and directly.
