Tilo Schulz

There is a hole in the back of my head and I enjoy looking out of it

Venue: acb Gallery, acb Attachment
Date: Oct 30 – Dec 11, 2015
Description

Berlin-based artist Tilo Schulz (1972) presents his work for the first time in acb Gallery in the scope of a solo exhibition. His works are complex environments that incorporate several branches of art – painting, architecture, sculpture, poetry. Hinged on visual and spatial perception, his installations gain meaning through the social and cultural connotations related to materials, shapes, and spaces. Throughout the more than 20 years of his career, Tilo Schulz has participated in a number of international shows. He has had solo exhibitions at the Sezession in Vienna, the Kunstverein in Hannover, and the Haus der Kunst in Munich, to mention a few. His installation Moments of Solution (the world is still not ready) has been on view at the Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton in Venice during the 2015 Venice Biennale.

At acb Gallery, Schulz has created a site-specific installation complemented with the space of acb Attachment. The concept of the exhibition is based on the dichotomy of closure and disclosure, taking form in a large painting installation dividing the gallery space as well as in the symbolic linking of the two exhibition spaces.

Obstructing the space of the gallery as a blade wall, the painting features an abstract pattern composed of geometrical structures, and an amorphous shape fashioned by applying blot-like gestures “flowing around” those structures. The loose composition and painting technique, along with the large white surfaces, loosen up the austerity of the wall that massively obstructs the space. The mirror surface placed underneath this wall, and the ceiling-, wall- and painting fragments reflected off it in accordance with the spectator’s movements, serve to question one’s perception of space firstly, then to raise the social aspects of closure and disclosure. The sense of insecurity triggered by the installation is balanced by the abstract tondi in the foyer and on the wall facing the entrance. Their concreteness, which manifests both in the medium and in the shape, contrasts with the installation, but functions also as a reference point for the interpretation of the whole exhibition.

Tilo Schulz links the physically separate space of acb Attachment to the gallery’s space in terms of content: the installation in the Attachment evokes the very space that is cut off by the painting installation in the gallery.

 
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