Appropriated re-enactments in a rapidly destabilizing world

Crime scenes are cordoned off by police, screens block an accident from view, barrier tape guides visitors through museums – these are all devices that are supposed to deter us from getting closer to things, places or valuable goods. Andrea Winkler stages appropriated re-enactments of this order as well as those security-suggesting items in a rapidly destabilizing world. She transfers these blocking devices very precisely into complex three-dimensional and accessible collages that, at the same time, always transform the surrounding architecture and the remaining exhibition situation into a precarious and thought-provoking scenario. In addition, she places marginal objects next to the barriers, which interact with the space and its impact, triggering strong emotions and evoking deviations from our everyday world. The fact that the motif-constellations themselves represent deviations from the norm in relation to accidents, underlines the artist's strategy. Andrea Winkler constructs a double-bind: on the one hand, the situations appear as a mere image or mimetic model of reality, which as art lacks any actual function; on the other hand, the works point to a real aesthetic system that creates a place with actual social regulations. The book at hand, with texts as well as intense and sometimes humorous conversations with the artist, illuminates her aesthetically disturbing and, in it’s chaos, quite unsettling work.

Exhibition:
Galerie im Turm, Berlin, 17/3–30/4/2017