OFLUXO

Trousers Leg and Knife Edge

Wodka Gorbatschow and Durstlöscher Multivitamin, the leg of a medieval suit of armour sewn out of faux leather, a winding chrome exhaust pipe – objects unexpectedly encounter one another in Kate Mackeson’s (*1985) studio. At the same time, they also reflect typical peculiarities of the places where the British artist lives and works. She combines consumer products, street finds, or cell phone photographs with her works produced out of fabric and metal, creating new correlations. The materials are familiar and tested, and extend through her oeuvre. For her series “Sirens” (2019–21), for example, she prints sheets of aluminium with photographs of well-known women in red dresses, shaping and connecting them to produce sculptures akin to architectural models. In “Moods/Moods II” (2019–20), she processes medieval pictorial languages, transfers motifs from them onto trousers, and places the distorted facial expressions of suffering figures in the crotch. Her relocation to the Ruhr region in conjunction with the “Neue Folkwang Residence” grant contributes to a new understanding of well-trodden working materials. The artist finds wrought ironwork objects via eBay – for instance a bottle rack or fire irons, which interest her in their odd blend of purposefulness and curlicue void of meaning. She manipulates, distorts or flattens them. Their new form not only distances itself from their original purpose, it also generally exposes unquestioned everyday aesthetics. With the support of a regional knife maker, she provides the pokers with a harp, shiny edge; in doing so, she shifts the purpose of the objects as well as their symbolic meaning. Is it about violence? About the influence of forces, about power? In the case of the chrome exhaust the sometimes thick, sometimes narrow pipe twists in an almost organic way and develops, unchanged, its own objectness. In Germany, the country of cars, the high-lustre metal is reminiscent of the fetish of individual mobility, of the imminent end of the age of fossil fuels and all of the social debates in between.

Mackeson’s interest in metal extends beyond the material itself. In Essen she primarily uses faux leather with a metallic sheen – a double imitation. She experiments with it in her studio; it serves as a substrate for new combinations of works or for further processing. She joins together the round pieces of faux leather and denim, which can hint towards (erotically) charged parts of the body such as lips, waists and crotch. The forms are painted, provided with further stiches, and some are supplemented with cut-out photographs, which are collected in the Internet or are snapshots from everyday life, and document discovered things in Essen that inscribe themselves into her work: shelves full of cosmetics for men, a notice for a management course in the hotel or food service industry. She adds the latter to the leg of a suit of armour, which she fashions out of gun metal coloured faux leather. It is modelled after so-called Maximilian armour, which is characterized by its fluted surface and was en vogue in the early sixteenth century. The artist accurately refashions the elaborate fittings and edges of the magnificent armour with stiches. She contrasts the piece of armour by means of individual denim legs, which she fragments, and seemingly casually leans against the wall or lays on the floor. They can develop a life of their own, but like amputated limbs are restricted in their freedom of movement. These are objects we encounter, in which we dress ourselves, and which surround us that Mackeson assembles in the sense of a collage. They also always bear traces of a specific place that reveal larger structures. Hence, they do not simply reflect the mechanisms of their world appropriation. Instead, they are themselves agents of daily practice in the studio that unceasingly generate open questions – about disparate power relations, gender and identity, role models and clichés, about history or current political issues.

The tour through the studio described above is continued at the Museum Folkwang in Essen (Germany). With the title “Antechamber”, the artist provides the exhibition with a framework that experienced a reassessment over time and makes reference to structures of human conduct. The antechamber of courtly culture, the anteroom for supplicants of an audience, was once subject to strict societal rules. Today, we are familiar with the antechamber from big companies or doctor’s surgeries as a soulless waiting room that is always furnished in the same way. “Antechamber” provides a context, is an in-between, a space of tense potential that Mackeson uses to create new constellations with her works.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with an essay by the writer, artist and translator Miriam Stoney, designed by Vela Arbutina, photography by Samuel Solazzo.

— Antonina Krezdorn