Greta Meert Gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition by sculptor Johannes Esper (1971, Cochem).
Johannes Esper's work is concerned with strategies of representation and contextualization in artistic practices. His sculptures seem to elude any form of definite classification as they balance on art's self-imposed boundaries. The materials and sculptural processes serve this intended ambivalence. Objects may not just be what they seem.
On display in the gallery are two series of monolithic forms from 2015. The ceramic pieces are hand-modelled: a solid body of clay is hollowed out by the artist, dried, and fired in an industrial kiln. The concrete pieces, on the other hand, are moulded: in a very direct, yet unorthodox way that derives from improvised rustic construction techniques, cast and sculpture are built simultaneously, leaving the gestalt of the sculpture unpredictable and hidden throughout the process until it is revealed in a final step.
Technique is closely entwined with the conceptual outset of these works. The ceramic pieces allow a more visually controlled process in which limitless changes can be made. While the final form of the concrete pieces cannot be anticipated, creative control and thus authorship is downplayed in favour of chance and accident. Hollowing out the ceramics is the outcome of a technical necessity and puts them in a familiar context. The hollow form of the concrete works, however, is more deliberate. Both types flirt with a reminiscence of functionality, which is strange to artistic objects. These spectra of sculptural choices raise fundamental questions about their status and constitutions as works of art.
The artist repeatedly challenges our habitual perception. A piece could be a vase, but not necessarily, as an archeological artefact or vessel might also come to mind. Both are legitimate points of view among others. The 'act of labelling' is trivial to the comprehension of these sculptures. As indicated in the title of the exhibition, the works remain 'untitled', since they do not contain any specific reference, nor was any attributed to them by the artist.
Johannes Esper's oeuvre is composed of a series of formal typologies that offer an alternative to conventional artistic categories. He creates a perceptive space in which the spectator is invited to a semiotic analysis, and in which their reflection is just as much part of the sculptural process as the works themselves. Whether they ultimately resemble something or not, becomes irrelevant.
Press release courtesy Galerie Greta Meert.
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