implicit touch

Works by Katinka Bock, Frauke Boggasch, Heinz Breloh, Cécile Huber, Hans Josephsohn, Markus Karstieß, Horst Münch, Aimée Parrott and others. Plus: a reenactment of Simone Forti's Huddle. Curated by Notburga Karl. 

3 June – 16 July 2017

Sculpture represents a dialog between a material’s unique features and the body of the artist who lays hands on it. The process of this dialogue remains embedded in the material. This exhibition looks at artistic strategies that firmly tie the becoming of form to the body – strategies that make visible the traces of body and hands interacting with the material from which art originates.

Today, ‘grasping’ is only figuratively linked to ‘understanding’, not in a literal sense anymore – as a means of gaining knowledge through touch. “Implicit Touch” takes a different route. It looks at the pleasure of interacting with material, the knowledge that can be gleamed by it, and the traces of that pleasure and knowledge that remain visible in works of art.

The “touch” of the title is both the act of touching and of being touched. It involves us in a material and an emotional sense. Touching is “implicit” in that our bodies are saturated with forms of knowledge we are, at best, barely conscious of.

The exhibition attempts to show how tacit knowing, the implicit touch, becomes visible in and through art. It also looks at artistic strategies that have been developed in regard to the challenges and chances provided by the material properties or art: How do artists explore the delicate balance between material becoming and final fixation  – and how much of that process remains imprinted in the finished product?

‘Implicit Touch’ aims to demonstrate the ongoing relevance of knowing with all senses, of elegance of form, of litheness.

Huddle Performances:

23 June 2017, 1 pm

29 June 2017, noon (ERBA)

30 June 2017, noon (Villa Dessauer)

6 July, 11:45-12:15 (ERBA/University building)

13 July, 11:45-12:15 (ERBA/University building)

15 July, 11:45-12:15 (Untere Brücke)

16 July, 11:45-12:15 (Schönleinsplatz next to the monument) and during the day (Kesselhaus)