ASPEN ART MUSEUM Exhibitions
MAGAZINE
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with the painting as if I’ve never painted before and may discover something unfamiliar in the familiar. PD In closing, can we talk about the projects that you have coming up for the Aspen Art Museum? In very differ- ent ways, these rely on either imagined or actual conversations or collabora- tions. In your instance, Allison, your research into Pompeii, while your pro- posal Kerstin, relates to your history of collaborative making. Allison, what are you currently thinking you might be doing? AK First, I just wanted to say, the fact that we are exhibiting at the same time is a coincidence. And I feel this is one of the gifts of our friendship, that these things happen, whether or not we even plan them. I love that. In Aspen I am going to be research- ing artworks from local, personal col- lections to create an exhibition around origin stories of display based on the design and use of Ancient Roman houses. I am looking at the ways in which certain ideas of identity, framing and value originated in this mixed-up use of domestic, public and mercantile space. I am hoping to be able to borrow fragments of frescoes and other objects from the archives of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, in Italy, where I was recently a Fellow, to transplant them into a contemporary context and think about how artworks are relational and can be seen anew within different conceptual frameworks. Based on this structure, I will also present my own new paintings, created in response to this archeological research, but which dovetail with pre-existing sub- jects and motifs, since these themes have been preoccupying me since I first started painting! KB Hearing you explain this is fascinating, your starting point is the remnants of mosaics and ruins, while I’m using that technique. My rooftop commission takes up the idea of our daily profane space, the home, and how it gets extended outwards, almost into a transcendental realm: I’m work- ing on mosaic benches for people to sit on and stained-glass constructions for climbing plants and nesting birds. I consider the mosaic a traversable painting facing the sky, allowing body, nature and art to merge into each other. The lifespan of the artwork can stretch into a different paradigm of time by including natural life. AK Exactly. I think there are so many affinities just through things that we’ve always been interested in, but in this context, it’s almost exaggerated in a really exciting way. PD And I think that is really beautiful in relation to Pompeii. Through the volcano erupting, the city was conserved. If this natural disaster had not occurred, we might not even know about Pompeii because it might have fallen apart and rotted. It really raises the question of, what is the life of art? It feels very pertinent to our time— these questions of preservation, in view of the energy crisis and climate change. I see a whole firework of connections popping up between the two projects you have in mind.
Below, top Allison Katz, The Cockfather , 2021. Courtesy: the artist Below, bottom Allison Katz Pompeii Circumstance (Hippolytus) , 2023 artist’s posters shot in situ at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, January 2023. Courtesy: the artist and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii; photograph: Amedeo Benestante
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Patrizia Dander is Head of Curatorial Department at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany.
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