Do materials and objects have logic? Do they even have a voice? And if so, what do they have to say?
The world is full of objects, and every day more are added. We live in a society that thrives on the never-ending pursuit to shop, own and consume. The result is the depletion of natural resources, degradation of the environment and the pollution of the planet. Consumerism is unsustainable, and we are slowly waking up to this realisation.
In the meantime, objects accumulate in our lives, filling our houses, apartments and storage facilities. They may be helpful initially, but ultimately newer models replace them while the landfill sites grow endlessly with discarded rejects.
Each object has its history. It is manufactured at a particular time and place and is imbued with the emotional, psychological and historical context in which it has been developed. Objects communicate these facts with their presence, individual characteristics, and physical attributes.
Materials and objects are part of the visual arts discourse since Picasso and Braque included bits of newsprint in their paintings, and Duchamp challenged the notion of what an artwork is by presenting a urinal as a Readymade.
The modernist idea of originality presents only one possible course of action. However, our everyday world is full of already existing forms, information, data and visual signals that can be reinterpreted, re-focused, transformed and re-presented (Bourriaud 2007. Postproduction. New York Lukas & Sternberg, 16-17)
Non-objective art relates to the abstract background of our lives, to the laws and patterns underlying our existence. It is concerned with geometric properties and spatial relations and, as a visual system, is removed from personal and emotional dramas.
In this exhibition, materials and objects from the everyday form an integral part of the investigation into geometric abstraction. They have been reconfigured and transformed and acquired a significance driven not by consumption but by their material logic. Their function is no longer predetermined but has become open to interpretation.
A. Spremberg 2023
Materialogic, 2017-2023. 28 enamel/varnish works on cardboard 357 x 495 x 9 cm.