Microreview: Inconsistency of Appearance

Microreview Ottiger 1
Image courtesy Christian Gonzenbach and Galerie Heinzer Reszler
Microreview Ottiger 2
Image courtesy Christian Gonzenbach and Galerie Heinzer Reszler
Microreview Ottiger 3
Image courtesy Christian Gonzenbach and Galerie Heinzer Reszler
Microreview Ottiger 4
Image courtesy Christian Gonzenbach and Galerie Heinzer Reszler
Microreview Ottiger 5
Image courtesy Christian Gonzenbach and Galerie Heinzer Reszler
Microreview Ottiger 6
Image courtesy Christian Gonzenbach and Galerie Heinzer Reszler
Microreview Ottiger 7
Image courtesy Christian Gonzenbach and Galerie Heinzer Reszler
Date
2022 February
Subtitle
Nicole Ottiger reviews Christian Gonzenbach, La plonge (The Plunge), 2021, exhibition at Galerie Heinzer Reszler, Lausanne, 11.12.2021 to 6.02.2022
Type
microreview
Author / Publisher
Nicole Ottiger for NewsLibrary
Author Info

Dr. Nicole Ottiger is a Swiss-British artist, researcher, and art psychotherapist. She holds a PhD from the University of Plymouth focusing on self-representation at the intersection of visual arts and neuroscience. She researches and reflects on ‘type(s) of knowledge’ acquired in art-based, experimental research at the interface of art and science, and artworks made within the process. She argues that a richness of inherent knowledge comes from using art as visual methodology.

Language

English

Also published here

Newsletter No. 43

Instagram @sarn_switzerland

Reviewed Publication

Christian Gonzenbach, La plonge (The Plunge), 2021, exhibition at Galerie Heinzer Reszler, Lausanne, 11 December 2021 to 6 February 202.

Christian is truly experimental, in his methodology and visual results. “The Plunge” is not just about a series of statues (of the Hulk, Aphrodite, Micky Mouse, and Bodhisattva, to name a few) but also a production unit (a mechanical device) that makes the artworks – a system that bathes the clay statues in wet glaze. With each dip, a further layer of glaze covers the figure, a step that can be carried out endlessly, turning the figure into a formless bulk. The glaze cracks while drying, and the conditions (duration, humidity, thickness, etc.) produce different results each time. Finally, while being fired at 1250° C, parts melt away to reveal the finished pieces of art.

Christian’s way of working and making art is both investigation and analysis. His work makes us ponder what materiality is and question our relationship to objects (in this case to heroes and icons) that we are familiar with. With the transformation of the material due to uncontrolled effects in the production process, new individualities – new personalities –result. In this way they signalize something essential about what happens to all of us psychologically as we grow and adapt through experiences in our lives. The figures also portray how even when the same factors affect material, the results are different every time, just as no two persons experience an identical ‘reality’ in the same way.

We look at the objects, at melted, stretched, cracked, torn structures and are gobsmacked –caught unaware. In a moment of surprise as unexpected as intimate, new meanings form in relation to the object and material we look at. We are material. We bond and relate to the appearances.