tatjana danneberg -...

LambdaLambdaLambda, St. Garibaldi 1, 10000 Prishtina, Kosovo, www.lambdalambdalambda.org

TATJANA DANNEBERG

Tatjana Danneberg In Tune

The unexpected, happens in the realm of events. Action, encounter, sur-prise. When events occur that bring to light opportunities that were in-visible or even unthinkable; they propose something to us. The philosopher Alain Badiou, reflects on how to activate and elaborate these incidents whilst inscribing them into the world. He suggests that every event can create a possibility which outcome depends on effort – a collective effort in the case of politics, an individual one in the realm of love or art – for this possibility to become real. Tatjana Danneberg’s practice is eventful. It unravels accidentally and it is determined by media and techniques layered upon each other. The starting point is a candid low-fi photography approach, by using cheap automatic cameras, Danneberg extends casual memories of the everyday depicting friends, acquaintances or her partner, in familiar often intimate shots. These shots purposefully reveal moments where action or the lack of it manifests. The protagonists, which identity is often difficult to rec-ognize, are dismissing or defeating reality. We see the details of a body, people laying in bed, the back of a towel during a seaside excursion, a decisive arm holding a dog.

Is this escapism or defence?Watching without being watched, like a spy.

Time doesn’t only apply to the sensibility of these images, but also to the different stages in which Danneberg fragments them. Characterised by a hybrid approach to making, which includes image developing, printing, transferring and painting, she fluctuates between fast and slow phases, alternating active and pausing steps. Images are enlarged and ink-jet printed on foil, the foil-image is then painted in gesso, left to dry and wet in water again to be ultimately separated from the foil and transferred on canvas. The final result is often unknown, distorted through its circuit, amplified by its different temporalities.

Waiting, waiting, time is always lost.

By applying a series of repetitive gestures, the works cohere, as if In tune with each other.Revealing a preoccupation with the nature of images and the possibili-ties that can unfold through their manipulation and deconstruction, a painterly attitude emerges defined by a deepen material and processual experimentation. How can we paint with images? Released through specific body move-ments, brushstrokes fragment the photographic image gesturally turning it into an expressive painting. The image liquifies, becoming malleable, recomposed by the body, its strength, its intuitive motions on canvas. The artist’s body becomes a decoding tool, transforming photography into painting. Historically in conflict, the representational media of pho-tography and painting unravel their antagonism within Danneberg’s work. Simulacra, simulation, representation. Real, unreal and the imaginary.This is how you solve a mystery.

Titled Out of Tune, Danneberg’s solo exhibition at LambdaLambdaLambda, Prishtina, is intended as a visual choreography. Finding forms of synchro-nization in the everyday, 5 canvas are exhibited in the space, compiling a narrative storyboard. Can we read its nonlinear sense? Body details are entangled in unnatural positions, an open deck of cards is concealing a face, two figures are depicted from the back, shared and private moments are meshed into one. We wonder who these characters are, what do they feel and if they are connected, we think about the un-conscious programming for our lives, the daily routines and movements. Upon attentive looking a harmonic pattern emerges through the charac-ters, the small gestures, postures, and what is not revealed. Complexity unified and inscribed into the world. Is this the Real?If so we are curious to understand what possibilities might unfold.

Attilia Fattori Franchini

__________________1 Alain Badious, Philosophy and the event, Paperback 2013.

Exhibition view, out of tune, LambdaLambdaLambda, Prishtina, 2020

Every party has a winner and a loser, 2020Ink-jet print, gesso, glue on canvas, 140 x 210 cm

When you’re looking for nothing and find nothing, 2019Ink-jet print, gesso, glue on canvas, 140 x 210 cm

Tableside manners, 2020Ink-jet print, gesso, glue on canvas, 140 x 210 cm

You only live twice, 2020Ink-jet print, gesso, glue on canvas, 140 x 210 cm

Nuda, 2020Ink-jet print, gesso, glue on canvas, 140 x 210 cm

Untitled, 2020Ink-jet print, gesso, glue on canvas, 140 x 210 cm

Exhibition view, Primo, Austrian Cultural Forum, Warsaw, 2019

Constantly no respect, 2019Gouache, ink, pigments, paint primer, glue on canvas, aluminum pipe approx. 180 × 270 cm

Sheepish, 2019 Gouache, ink, pigments, paint primer, glue on canvas, aluminum pipe approx. 180 × 270 cm

Uno, 2019Gouache, ink, pigments, paint primer, glue on canvas, aluminum pipe approx. 180 × 270 cm

Cacio & Pepe, 2019Gouache, ink, pigments, paint primer, glue on canvas, aluminum pipe, approx. 180 × 270 cm

untitled, 2019Gouache, Ink-jet print, paint primer, glue on canvas, 164 x 246 cm

Sorry for the late reply, 2019Gouache, Ink-jet print, paint primer, glue on canvas, 90 × 135 cm´

Modern life, 2019Gouache, Ink-jet print, paint primer, glue on canvas, 90 × 135 cm

Exhibition view, A Barbarian in Paris, Fondation d’enterprise Ricard, Paris, 2018

Exhibition view, A Barbarian in Paris, Fondation d’enterprise Ricard, Paris, 2018 Six characters in search of an author #1-4, 2018, Gouache, ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, aluminum pipe, approx. 105 × 190 cm

Six characters in search of an author #6, 2018Gouache, ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, aluminum pipeapprox. 105 × 190 cm

Six characters in search of an author #5, 2018Gouache, ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, aluminum pipeapprox. 105 × 190 cm

One step behind you, LambdaLambdaLambda, Prishtina, 2018

The exhibition One step behind you and the works therin are inspired by Samuel Beckett’s play Act without words that is a parable of resignation with a grotesque take on human frailty. Within the exhibition the gallery space becomes a frozen stage with the paintings and sculptures act-ing as memes, representing various symbols from Beckett’s play that are used to represent action or the lack thereof, respectively.

In this new series of paintings Danneberg focuses on drawing as a medi-um within her transfer-technique exploring its potential of becoming the final result of a painterly process rather than acting merely as a means for drafting a painting. The drawings appearing on the paintings are initially made in an A4 pa-per-format and are then scanned and scaled to the big format of the canvas and printed on a foil that is later transferred onto the canvas. In Danneberg’s paintings the artistic process is reversed and what is seen as the final result consists of multiple acts that happen outside the realm of the canvas but throughout the process refer to the painterly process. The artist approaches her paintings in a sculptural way by lay-ing emphasis on “building” the painting a priori, rather than painting as the final act for which the drawing’s horizon with implications is used to make this explicit.

The stucco-marble sculptures within the exhibition represent two charac-ters from Beckett’s play that are trapped in bags. By keeping them frozen in the bags the artist renders them actors unable to act and thus creates an environment where they cannot exist but cannot escape, either.

99 problems, 2018Gouache, inkjet-print, paint primer, glue on canvas, 120 × 180 cm

what do you think they think?, 2018Gouache, inkjet-print, paint primer, glue on canvas, 120 × 180 cm

should I slowly sneak away?, 2018Gouache, inkjet-print, paint primer, glue on canvas, 120 × 180 cm

I start to stop, 2018Inkjet-print, paint primer, glue on canvas, 120 × 180 cm

A (I always say yes), 2018Alabaster plaster, bone glue, pigments, fiberglass, epoxy glue, styro-dur, polyurethane foam, slaked lime, appr. 62 × 50 × 110 cm

B (I’m new here), 2018Alabaster plaster, bone glue, pigments, fiberglass, epoxy glue, styro-dur, polyurethane foam, slaked lime, appr. 61 × 65 × 115 cm

deep sea hydrothermal vent shrimpDiploma, The Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, 2017

In her practice Tatjana Danneberg investigates signs, symbols, and ques-tions about integrity - in a general sense, but also in terms of the unique-ness and validity of an artwork itself: how can it construct an illusion, where is the gap between imitation, fake and “original”, and how can the relation between imagination and reality be displayed? In this vein she examines surfaces with a specific interest in the very moment when a surface fails to show an intact image or form. Tatjana’s paintings are primarily created on a foil, then “peeled off” the surface and later with help of a binding solvent transferred to the can-vas. She uses a similar technique for the photographic elements in her works. Those are images printed on vinyl, where the application of paint on the print enables them to be disconnected from the vinyl and in fur-ther steps get moved onto the canvas. In this procedure, the surface of the images rips open, gets somewhat destroyed, which is metaphorically building a bridge between the observer and what lays beyond- behind the image. The paintings are like transmitters, or windows, trying to capture one specific yet maybe not existing moment, the glimpse of a thought or a memory.Through the process of flipping the painted surface, the foreground be-comes background, and what is first not intended to be shown, gets even-tually visible - reversed steps underline the time frame within the image, in a manner of recalling memories. Painterly gestures, in their most basic forms of color, pattern, intensity and rhythm are combined, manipulated and organically infused with photographic images.

In her most recent paintings Tatjana Danneberg uses scientific photo-graphs that were taken by Victor 6000, a robotic submarine, at the bot-tom of the sea in total absence of human hand as well as reach. Opposed to the current thematization of the Anthropocene, with its emphasis on humans shaping nature, this series suggests a different scenario, namely a glimpse of what exists beyond our reach. As usually the case in her painting-collages the artists creates windows to another realm by break-ing through the surface of images.

deep sea hydrothermal vent shrimp, 2017 Gouache, pigment ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, 130 × 180 cm

Anemones near hydrothermal vent, 2017 Gouache, pigment ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, 200 × 150 cm

Giant tube worm, 2017 Gouache, pigment ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, 150 × 200 cm

Detail, Giant tube worm

don’t be a stranger, 2017 Gouache, ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, 120 × 90 cm

i have tasted danger, 2017 Gouache, ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, 120 × 90 cm

the day he himself shall wipe my tears away, 2017Gouache, ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, 150 × 100 cm

bewegliche ziele, 2017Gouache, ink, paint primer, glue on canvas, 150 × 100 cm

In her series of sculptures she uses shapes that stem from drawings on the variations of the human face by Bruno Munari from 1966. With these drawings Munari addressed the problem of solely using one specific fa-cial expression in advertisement, and that there is a pattern or rule in its whole appearance of how it is being presented to the public. With her sculptures that look like giant abstracted faces frozen in the moment of an emotional expression the artist emphasises the process of comment-ing on a situation when not being able to put it into words, the struggle of a trapped emotion or gesture, or failures of communication in general.These sculptures are executed in stucco marble, an ancient technique of imitating real marble, in order to build a surface, that is usually used as a cover or decoration of architectural elements. Here Tatjana is inter-ested in the illusion it creates, and what effort of craftsmanship it takes in order to generate this illusion, which can be easily mistaken for the original marble. At the same time she aims for creating a delusion by dis-sembling a perfect looking stone surface which is not as heavy as it may seem. The moment when by looking closer the spectator starts to detect the incompleteness of the seemingly perfect surface and discovers all its deviations, is for Tatjana exemplary for the failed attempt to fake or copy nature.

In her sculptural works the artist examines and renders questions about reality, in terms of the inner relation between materials and working pro-cess, images and gestures.

reeling in my smile, 2017 Alabaster plaster, bone glue, pigments, fiberglass, epoxy glue, styrodur, poly-urethane foam, slaked lime, stainless steel, 107 × 25.5 × 179 cm

Exhibition view, Summer Show, Carl Kostyal Stockholm, 2017happy and unlucky, 2017Alabaster plaster, bone glue, pigments, fiberglass, epoxy glue, styrodur, polyurethane foam, slaked lime, stainless steel, appr. 135 × 130 × 25 cmstayed a while then went away, 2017 Alabaster plaster, bone glue, pigments, fiberglass, epoxy glue, styrodur, polyurethane foam, slaked lime, stainless steel, appr. 132 × 122 × 25 cm

Heavy blossom, 2018Alabaster plaster, bone glue, pigments, fiberglass, styrodur, polyurethane foam, slaked lime, steel, stainless steel, silicone, 161 × 123 × 25 cm

yesterday will come, 2016Alabaster plaster, bone glue, pigments, fiberglass, epoxy glue, styrodur, poly-urethanefoam, slaked lime, lacquered steel, 65 × 24 × 138 cm

Ratatouille, Shanaynay, Paris, 2015

Group exhibition with Tatjana Danneberg, Anna Fehr, Simon Lässig, Vera Lutz, Philipp Reitsam, Halvor Rønning curated by Felix Gaudlitz

FG: You once told me that you don’t like to read comics or watch cartoons because they’re too boring at some point, too flat, yet you somehow nev-er include Lustiges Taschenbuch – the German version of Disney Comics – into that division. What is it that makes you want to read and watch this but not the others?

FG: There is a certain speed in regular comics, like in ‘The Naked Gun’ where they have a joke every 30 seconds! Cartoons somehow function the same way. But if you have colorful non-realistic characters plus absurd stories, it can be too much—whereas Disney Comics are more subtle. They resemble real history. Historical pop culture so to speak, like Charlie Chaplin.

FG: When you were in Paris, you went directly to Disneyland…

FG: Disneyland is the best! It combines everything you want. Childhood memories with highly elaborated ideas and technical development. It is very detailed on a high conceptual level. When we were there, we could see small plastic spiders creating webs in the endless queue of the In-diana Jones ride. To make the wait more agreeable, they try to set up scenes that you can follow. For instance you can follow archeological digs, where you see tents, rail tracks and all kinds of historical items. There was one very interesting observation: either they found original parts from the 1930s (that’s when Indiana Jones takes place), such as spades, tents, or lamps or they re-produced them. Same with the found sculptures. So, either Disneyland buys old material or they have someone to re-create all these things. In any case, it’s like a museum. They have someone who knows about this very topic and who is researching on this time for either buying or for re-creating the items – both extremely elab-orated. And I mean, we are only talking about the queue, which people barely even acknowledge. Going into the ride is the actual attraction.

Exhibition view, Cha Cha Cha, LambdaLambdaLambda, Prishtina, 2015

tatjana danneberg -...

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