Magnetic spaces by Fritz Bornst\u00fcck<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Anne Malherbe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fritz Bornst\u00fcck paints still lifes \u2013 arrangements of precarious objects, set in rooms bathed in an unnatural light, or in barren\nlandscapes. And yet it is difficult to assimilate these arrangements with our common conception of still lifes as compositions of\nmagnified, shining, alluring artefacts. Here, on the contrary, we are looking at unattractive objects, bits and pieces, debris and\ndetritus \u2013 heaps of rubbish left by the side of the road after someone moved homes, traces of a makeshift dwelling in an\noutdoor setting, the remains of life in an abandoned house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These seemingly banal things (a wobbly chair, an empty bottle, a broken refrigerator) are treated with special attention by the\nartist, forming an iconographic vocabulary that serves as the starting point for his paintings. But they are not alone in playing\nthis role. There are also the small objects that the artist happens upon while painting (cigarette butts, old chewing gums). And\nthere are memories, personal encounters with places such as the Auberge des M\u00e9sanges, which lends its name to one of the\nworks.\nThese sources (obsessions, memories, all and sundry) act like magnets on each other, forming a forceful centre of attraction\nfrom which the painting develops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet it would be wrong to see these paintings merely as snapshots. On the contrary, they are the result of a permanent\nprocess, both in terms of their realisation and as regards the specific engagement they require of viewers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Bornst\u00fcck\u2019s paintings, the space is built from a few basic elements, as epitomised by an interior composed of a two-tone\ntiling, bare walls, an open window, which acts as a matrix. Indeed, this interior space reappears from one composition to the next\nwith slight variations. Then begins the adventurous part, as the painter composes a scene of fragile elements whose balance is\npermanently threatened. Lianas, a crutch, a ball, an electric cable and an old umbrella have adjusted to each other, and despite\nthe surprising nature of their arrangement each seem to have found their preferred spot. These impossibilities work because the\nspace of the painting has decided so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Space in Bornst\u00fcck\u2019s painting seems magnetic. It is a \u2018magnetic field\u2019 that attracts whatever comes near it, a string of multiple\nelements whose confrontation produces a strange, unstable and often humorous or even grotesque result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hidden references to the history of art (for instance, the mattress from Jeff Wall\u2019s seminal piece Destroyed Room) are\nsuperimposed on motifs borrowed from reality. Bornst\u00fcck\u2019s paintings thus create their own reality, whose often thick materiality\nis a key constituent of the work. Indeed, this painterly matter, enhanced with heterogeneous objects (bottle caps, bits of canvas\nimpregnated with pigment), carries its own irregularities and debris. The painting of Fritz Bornst\u00fcck is a total world that brings\ntogether obsessions, memories, art history and tactile qualities, transcending the boundaries between reality and imagination.\nAnd when he embarks on his journey, the artist does not know what will happen until the painting is completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same applies to his ceramic works, which are created through a risky accumulation of sometimes barely identifiable motifs.\nThey are an extension of his painting \u2013 as if the very material of the painting, in its desire to expand, had simply left the canvas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bornst\u00fcck\u2019s series of small paintings focuses on the encounter between nature and human artefacts, a recurring concern in his\nwork. Appearing in a scraggy natural landscape, the motifs are imbued with black humour (a bird with a cigarette in its beak, a\ncigar stuck in a cup of ice) and shown in obsessive close-ups (a mysteriously switched-on microwave oven, a bottle of detergent\nthrown into a pond). Beyond the ecological underpinning, what matters first of all is the creation of a place that is cemented by\nthe pictorial matter, for it is this matter that binds together all the contradictions.\nThis painting therefore comes \u2018after\u2019: after the history of painting, to which it makes numerous references; after the event\nduring which these places and objects were abandoned; after the human interventions that have terminally damaged nature. It\nis a kind of painting that brings together that which is scattered and brings back to life that which is dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This world is sometimes crossed by a strange character, who is himself assembled from random scraps. A wandering figure with\na twisted demeanour, he seems to be searching for his way in this new world without place or time. Maybe he represents the\npainter, or even the spectator, with whose gaze these paintings ceaselessly play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FRITZ BORNST\u00dcCK<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born 1982 in Germany. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.\nIn the still lifes of Fritz Bornst\u00fcck, found objects are given a new lease of life. By reusing and repurposing the waste (debris) of\npopular culture, the artist practices what he calls \u2018cultural recycling\u2019. Bornst\u00fcck is an explorer. His materials draw on a wide range\nof sources: film noir, found footage, his own environment, his private waste. Bornst\u00fcck\u2019s works can be found in the collection of\nthe Arken Museum in Copenhagen, the Hildebrand Collection in Leipzig, the L\u00fctzow Collection in Berlin, the Paschertz\nCollection (shown at Museum Heylshof in Worms, Germany) and the S\u00d8R Rusche Collection in Berlin and Cologne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":21290,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-21289","exposition","type-exposition","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-passees"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maiamuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exposition\/21289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maiamuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exposition"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maiamuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/exposition"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maiamuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maiamuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maiamuller.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}