The room installation consists of a two-dimensional grid made of nylon threads vertically spanning the room, upon which a drawing has been made using drinking straws.
The drawing depicts a view of losely stacked boxes. The perspective selected makes it look like ‘the boxes’ are in the exhibition space.
Press release
For the 5th Picture Window at Manière Noire, Berlin artist Daniela Friebel shows her new installation BOXES and invites the viewers to play with their perception and imagination in regard to the construction of space and images.
The installation BOXES was made specifically for the Picture Window at Manière Noire. It is a black and white line drawing made of countless delicate and almost invisible nylon threads and black plastic straws, constructing a drawing which seems to be floating in space.
Its a two-dimensional image on a grid that projects a drawing of randomly stacked boxes into the gallery space. The projection echoes a vector graphic inserted into an architectural image as much as traditional painting aids like the grid used by Albrecht Dürer. Image and space superimpose one another, but there is only one point of view where both their perspectives meet and fall into one perspective.
The act of making / taking a image has been referred to a ‘cut-out’ by photography historian Philippe Dubois – in the temporal sense, but also – and more importantly – in the spatial sense. When the viewer moves in front of Manière Noires Picture Window, the image shifts position in regard to the space.
In the drawing, randomly stacked boxes fill the room. Their purpose and content is unclear. Is someone moving in or out? Is it an art transport that has just been delivered or is ready to picked up?
The building in Waldenser Strasse No 7 is more than 110 years old. Already in the first decade of its existence, it housed a milk and a soap shop, the Sprengel chocolate factory and a flower store run by the sisters Johanna and Martha Cyrus – all of which have been discontinued due to reasons unknown to us today.
“How stable are the things that surround us? And what happens to us when things change? When we see things in a different light? Is it possible that we too change when our perception of the things in the room change? And if so – what stays the same?” (Dorothea Ullrich)
