MASCHINENHAUS M2

Natalie Czech / Friederike Feldmann
1 September 2019 – 2 February 2020

The double exhibition Natalie Czech / Friederike Feldmann in the Maschinenhaus M2 at the KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art brings the works of these two artists into a dialogue and also presents completely new works, some of which were conceived for the exhibition. In their works, Natalie Czech and Friederike Feldmann deal with the pictorial nature of text and writing and question at what point meanings are created.

In her series of photographs, Natalie Czech develops new meanings in the aesthetic interweaving of different levels of text and image. The starting point for her conceptual photographs is selected text materials that she combines with a visual counterpart. The artist examines the poetic potential of interactions between image and text. In addition to works from series such as Negative Calligrammes (2018) and Poet’s Questions (2018–19), Czech will present the series Cigarette ends (2019) for the first time at the KINDL, realized as a double projection, in which she arranges the brand names of smoked, variously arranged cigarette butts into minimal poems.

Friederike Feldmann’s paintings, which look like manuscripts, cannot be read, even though it initially seems that individual letters can be deciphered: on closer examination, the powerful lines and sweeping arcs, which are based on the Latin script, turn out to be abstract strings of symbols without a standardized system of reference. Works from the series oneliner (2014-2019) and lyrics (2012), among others, will be shown in the Maschinenhaus M2. Feldmann creates a distinctive accent with her site-specific ceiling painting, which she uses to integrate the surfaces of the shed roof.

The exhibition is curated by Andreas Fiedler.