Pentimenti

The Berlin artist Ute Lindner has conceived room-filling wall works in situ especially for the exhibition at the Löwenpalais, inspired by a reading by Hanns Zischler that was recorded at the Akademie der Künste in 2002 as part of one of the artist’s projects: “A Gallery Portrait” (“Ein Kunstkabinett”) by Georges Perec, a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, and a text by Hanns Zischler himself on the theme of shadows. Without wishing this to be understood in an illustrative sense, each of the three rooms at the Löwenpalais is concerned primarily with one of these themes: reflection, labyrinth and shadow images.

The term “pentimenti”, which gives the exhibition its title, conventionally refers to the invisible images hidden in the lower layers of paint in paintings, which become visible only through UV or X-ray radiation. As an exhibition title, Pentimenti thus becomes a search for the image within the image.

In the central room, a wall work of almost 80 square metres is being created, covering the entire wall surface. This blocks the actual access to the exhibition; the entrance is through the large double doors on the street side. The room is characterised by its impressive windows, with their curtains and chandelier. This wall is “projected” at a scale of one to one onto the opposite wall as a wall work – not as a film, but in real photographic terms as a cyanotype on fabric, an old photographic printing process in which sunlight transforms the iron-salt compound into a luminous blue. The wall work is, however, not simply a photographic copy transferred into a cyanotype. Where the windows are, one does not see the view outside; instead the room appears to be mirrored into infinity.

The second room shows works that come from the Kunsthalle Bremen. Starting from photographs of the Kunsthalle’s library room, photo collages are created that dissolve the room, together with its visitors, into a labyrinth. The images are mounted on acrylic and cut out in irregular shapes, so that they take on a three-dimensional effect.

The third room deals with shadows. It shows shadow images from museums, from the series “Exposure Times” (“Belichtungszeiten”). These are original wall coverings from museums on which the pictures have left their shadows, while the fabric around the pictures has faded or darkened. They are thus photograms produced over a long period of time, now exhibited as “ready-mades”, which raise the question of the identity of images. Works from the Gemäldegalerie Wilhelmshöhe and the Kunsthalle Bremen will be on show.

The shadow images from Kassel, up to nine metres long, are made of thick red felt, on which the pictures – and in places also the Plexiglas labels – have left their marks. The fabric has faded heavily around the pictures, whereas the linen used for the Bremen shadow images has darkened over the years.

This room also shows the video of the reading with Hanns Zischler as a small monitor piece. The recording was made at the time in front of a red felt work at the Akademie der Künste.