Star
Katrine Bobek & Niclas Riepshoff
12.06.2021—08.07.2021
Maybe the change of perspective is as simple: the sun is just a star like all the others in space. It’s the one earth happens to revolve around and humankind thought up myths and legends about - but as we know there are plenty others we could fill with stories.
In the time period from March 2020 until now, what we all were looking for (and of course have been before and will be afterwards) is guidance and orientation. The star was made to take on this role of guiding nautical adventurers, giving a possibility for divination through astrology in company of it’s siblings, and as a more recent phenomenon turning into a metaphor for an idol or a performer. Taking on the role of a star yourself, you might have to change your perspective a little, look down from high up, if you don’t do that already. You have to take on a bird’s eye view (maybe that of a star bird* crossing a border with his swarm returning).
The exact POV of a raindrop, pouring from the clouds and hitting the soil, unable to exit its cycle and probably at one point finding itself flushed through a watering can. Running down a worker’s forehead to regulate their body temperature. Being pressured by heat from beneath through the filter sieve of an espresso maker to be infused with caffeine. Taking part in carrying some water lilies for some toads to relax on and gather for a chant at the pond. Having followed this little autogenous journey top-down, we should feel the ground we are standing on a bit differently.
Have you caught a glimpse of this line of lights that‘s hiking across the night sky like tired shooting stars in a wake?**
The exhibition “Star” at Fonda gathers recent works by Katrine Bobek and Niclas Riepshoff that meet in the room’s architecture over muddy ground. Cosmist, futurist models of vessels made from cardboard ranging somewhere between luggage, Bialettis and watering cans stretch through the rooms, surrounded by paintings and drawings depicting mystic scenes of exhausted toads and other creatures, circling, moving within their own orbit. The swampy floor suggests a childlike playground for visitors, imposing questions of (circular) movements, decay, posture, rest, and standstill. Always looking for new adventures, the two artists here tell a children’s tale for adults.
*celestial star and bird have no real connection, linguistics just put them close together
**https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink
Text by Philipp Zöhrer
Photo Documentation by Alexandra Ivanciu