Mariele Neudecker’s profound works blend the theoretical foundations of perception with an unconventional reception of art history – submitting those historic works or epochs to an idiosyncratic interpretation that were themselves dedicated to the phenomenon of perception by describing meteorological, psychological and atmospheric conditions.
Neudecker’s approach is particularly apparent in her so-called ‘tank-works’: three-dimensional landscapes en miniature, often based on Romantic paintings, sunk in containers filled with liquid. This medium is veiling and yet at the same time unveiling: a cloudy or tinted solution that extrapolates the pictorial illusion of the original work while diffusing it in saltwater and dye.
Read moreHer most recent work, “There Go I“, is based on one of the many versions of Arnold Böcklin’s painting “Die Toteninsel”. The eerie atmosphere of the scenery has been preserved, but while the painting retains a mystery, Mariele Neudecker willingly exposes her ingredients. She resolves the morbid into the sombre backdrop of the looming rocks and the deep black hue of the water lapping the island. Even the work’s title can be read as a Memento mori. In her three-part installation “Over and Over, Again and Again” Mariele Neudecker takes the decomposition and dissection of perception beyond her former solutions: three tanks are placed in the exhibition space as individual works, but from one single point of view these three miniature-landscapes actually reveal the impression of one sole image. Here the artist employs – with the sophistication of a Mannerist visual effect – the sculptural models as well as the spatial void between the works to recreate the impact of an illusionist painting. “Over and Over, Again and Again” transposes a viewing pyramid into the co-ordinates of the gallery space, and it is only in the eye of the beholder that the pyramid’s planes shape into one complete picture.
(Text: Astrid Mania)
