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Submission
AUGUST 10, 2023
we would provide complete darkness
Lisa Seebach at Kunstverein Friedberg
June 10 — July 16, 2023
Cut a sheet of glossy paper into strips about 1 cm wide.
Trim the strips to be 8 to 10 cm in length.
Glue together the ends of a strip to make a ring.
Attach the next ring around the first one in an interlocking pattern.
You can repeat this endlessly. (1)
Trim the strips to be 8 to 10 cm in length.
Glue together the ends of a strip to make a ring.
Attach the next ring around the first one in an interlocking pattern.
You can repeat this endlessly. (1)
Something has happened. The party is over, the car has been scrapped, the divorce papers have been signed. It is hard to say how long it has been this way. It is quite possible that in the meantime, new parties have been celebrated, new cars driven, new people loved.
At Kunstverein Friedberg, Lisa Seebach stages the snapshots of a fragmented history. Her sculptures hold clues to its pivotal moments: Pennants hanging limp, wilted flowers, and a few pellets of sad thoughts.
Shrunken stages of great promise are stacked upon each other in a spider’s web of steel. A random vacation snapshot on Instagram served as the inspiration for three heart-shaped ceramic platforms. The steel original seemed perfectly suited for the meticulously planned wedding proposal; in Seebach’s case, a palm-like leafy plant has taken hold of the imagination.
So there it hangs, the performative romance, caught in the baited trap, held by a paper chain of infantile expectations. Endless chains of glossy paper strips: a comforting ritual to gloss over one’s impatience before upcoming festivities. Meanwhile, the Sad Machine pours its ominous fluids onto a carelessly covered mattress. The refuge of the bed appears as a breeding ground for dark premonitions. Concerns and confidence must once have wrestled one another in the drowsy waking state. The absent body indicates surrender – or a new awakening.
“Your parents love you,” a sign warns outside the forest of uncertain return. Or perhaps it was Seebach’s invention. The parking lot at Aokigahara encloses the space for the tension of ambiguous moments. Famous as a tourist destination, infamous for its tragic deaths, it becomes a symbol of obscure entanglements.
Seebach anchors the ambivalent feeling in the cast of a car mat. During her stay in New York in 2017, she regularly rested her feet on it as a passenger. Eviscerated from the car skeleton, picked up and exhibited, the object now becomes a bridge between experience and narrative. The wreath of flowers on it is both innocent adornment and fatal snare.
Images, places, and ideas overlap in Seebach’s work. They create the impression of a displaced reality. In the exhibition space, Seebach has replicted the lattice window of the Kunstverein, which separates the inside from the outside world. There it guards a fragile present as the repository of the past.
We would provide complete darkness – the title of the exhibition reads like the advertising promise of a company that seeks to capitalize on the advantages of uncertainty. Darkness allows tired eyes to rest. Darkness allows fears to flourish. It promises a welcome retreat from reality but holds the danger of losing reality.
What is worth letting go of? Who is worth letting go of? When is it worth letting go? Seebach simulates a departure with no return. Her invitation implies a promise of salvation. Her invitation is a warning.
(1) www.basteln-gestalten.de
— Anna Meinecke
We would provide complete darkness
Lisa Seebach
Kunstverein Friedberg
June 10 — July 16, 2023
Curation: Arthur Löwen
Text: Anna Meinecke
Photography: Jens Gerber
Lisa Seebach (born 1981, Cologne, Germany) studied at the Braunschweig University of Art. In 2016, she received the Friedrich-Vordemberge Prize of Cologne, the Gustav Weidanz Award in Halle and the artist’s prize of Brandenburg. Her work was show in recent group exhibitions at artothek, Cologne, 2016; Kunstverein Hannover, 2015; Villa Arson, Nice, 2015; Idling Gallery, Berlin 2014; and Biennale Mulhouse, 2012.
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