Echoes in Time and Space

Opening:
Saturday 9 May, 3pm-5pm

Artists talk:
Saturday 16 May, 3pm

For this Lot19 exhibition, Dahlhausen and Graeve bring into play both new and older works, allowing them to react to one another, and to the environs of the gallery. In this way, the title “Echoes in Time and Space” acquires both literal and metaphorical dimensions.

A plethora of compositional propositions and material textures contribute towards a spatial noisiness, even without the explicit inclusion of sound. Canvases, aluminium panels, lights and foils speak with and over each other as component parts. Each work develops dialogues – fields of resonance – with the others, and with the gallery itself, which is constantly transformed by changes in daylight. These conditions form to be specific and contingent: they are, here and now, uniquely, what they are. In turn, artworks that previously functioned in isolation, are put to work in ever-changing ensembles.

Dahlhausen and Graeve’s works also respond to the surroundings, breathing in the light. Dahlhausen’s foil and aluminium works reflect and refract, while Graeve’s canvases speed up and slow down. Boundaries dissolve. Dahlhausen’s light rods mark a musical staccato within the space, echoing the rhythmic placement of Graeve’s canvases. A total work emerges.

Openness is the central theme. Everything contributes: past and present, inside and outside, colour and light, surface and space, gloss and matte, reduction and complication. Everything is in flux: here and now, today and tomorrow, noise and silence. The signal reaches out, the echo speaks back, changed by what it has touched along the way.

BIOS
Two artists, one from Germany, the other from Australia, have now collaborated for exactly 20 years, working together with a sense of joy and discovery. Their shared projects are driven by the dissolution of certain material and spatial boundaries, as well as the bridging of distances.

The German artist, Dr Christoph Dahlhausen, initially studied cello, and in his practice focuses on light, colour and space. His installations frequently address space and place – as does the work here for Lot19. The Australian artist, Michael Graeve, often combines aspects of painting and sound. Both artists are united by their interest in reductive visual languages, and clarities of form. These characteristics, if considered as tactics, create space for a specific kind of free and open experiencing – even for the works themselves, which resonate differently in the context of each new encounter.

Exhibition dates:
Fridays-Sundays, 10 to 24 May
11am to 4pm