Sebastian Stumpf: Ocean
Apr 09, 2016 - Jun 04, 2016
For some time it appeared that the city was the fundamental setting of Sebastian Stumpf鈥檚 work, its phenomena his essential material. He developed an approach to the urban situations that he encountered 鈥� the underground parking garages, bridges and trees found in Tokyo, London, Lyon or Berlin. He moved through Lyon by walking on air or on his head, inserted his body into the narrow spaces between highrises in Tokyo or cast himself over the railings of bridges in London. In his new works, however, a movement out of the exhibition space (Performance #1-#32, ongoing since 2004) into cities and through transitional suburban areas leads to the edge of the European and North American mainland 鈥� the Atlantic Ocean. The first part of the exhibition is made up of a series of analog colour photographs entitled Zenit [Zenith]. In a landscape of rocky shorelines and abandoned buildings a figure is placed in an imaginary coordinate system that stretches from the horizon to the concrete ruins to the airspace over the water鈥檚 surface. Similar to the earlier slide series from Lyon, the figure is seen either upside down on his head or walking on air. The base is always the last architectural element, the feet seem to touch the horizon from above or from below. In this way the body is converted into a unit of measurement with its own relationship to gravity, amplitude and optical laws. The difficulty of the physical act and photographic precision ends in a temporary constellation 鈥� a slapstick-like gesture in a limitless expanse. The video projection Ozean [Ocean] features a variation of this approach. In a series of shots we are presented with an ever changing ocean panorama, into which after some time a figure enters with his back to us. The figure crosses the broad shoreline cliff and finally springs into the sea. This act repeats itself in scene after scene, at the end of each of which the figure disappears as it dives under water. As casual as the action might appear at first, it lends the work a subversive character. It is about escaping from the picture. If in Zenit the body was a unit of measurement in complex dialogue with the camera and horizon, in Ozean it serves to put an end to this conversation. The presence of the figure defines the image, which is immediately dissolved again. A radical, potentially existential manner of disappearing becomes an exercise, a repetitive, ever varying motion.
For some time it appeared that the city was the fundamental setting of Sebastian Stumpf鈥檚 work, its phenomena his essential material. He developed an approach to the urban situations that he encountered 鈥� the underground parking garages, bridges and trees found in Tokyo, London, Lyon or Berlin. He moved through Lyon by walking on air or on his head, inserted his body into the narrow spaces between highrises in Tokyo or cast himself over the railings of bridges in London. In his new works, however, a movement out of the exhibition space (Performance #1-#32, ongoing since 2004) into cities and through transitional suburban areas leads to the edge of the European and North American mainland 鈥� the Atlantic Ocean. The first part of the exhibition is made up of a series of analog colour photographs entitled Zenit [Zenith]. In a landscape of rocky shorelines and abandoned buildings a figure is placed in an imaginary coordinate system that stretches from the horizon to the concrete ruins to the airspace over the water鈥檚 surface. Similar to the earlier slide series from Lyon, the figure is seen either upside down on his head or walking on air. The base is always the last architectural element, the feet seem to touch the horizon from above or from below. In this way the body is converted into a unit of measurement with its own relationship to gravity, amplitude and optical laws. The difficulty of the physical act and photographic precision ends in a temporary constellation 鈥� a slapstick-like gesture in a limitless expanse. The video projection Ozean [Ocean] features a variation of this approach. In a series of shots we are presented with an ever changing ocean panorama, into which after some time a figure enters with his back to us. The figure crosses the broad shoreline cliff and finally springs into the sea. This act repeats itself in scene after scene, at the end of each of which the figure disappears as it dives under water. As casual as the action might appear at first, it lends the work a subversive character. It is about escaping from the picture. If in Zenit the body was a unit of measurement in complex dialogue with the camera and horizon, in Ozean it serves to put an end to this conversation. The presence of the figure defines the image, which is immediately dissolved again. A radical, potentially existential manner of disappearing becomes an exercise, a repetitive, ever varying motion.
Artists on show
