Franka Hörnschemeyer »IMAGINARY STATE«

The site-specific installation in the gallery is based on shifts, a significant strategy for Hörnschemeyer’s work. She basically employs the metal stud framing against its inherent qualities as a construction material. The framework was not covered with sheetrock to create stable walls but instead used to build self-supporting modules. Following the minimalist principle of stacking, she erected a solid grid structure that creates a space of its own. The installation “Imaginary State” meanders through the whole gallery, its outline referencing the ceiling’s structure with its parallel beams—a distinctive characteristic of the building’s architecture.

The sheetrock, customarily used for constructing drywalls, is placed in layers directly on the floor, creating different three-dimensional objects. The pale-green boards are perforated by multiple round holes, and shows traces of the time-consuming process of drilling them. Both the sheetrock’s material composition as well as its fragility become visible. Holes are a recurrent theme in Hörnschemeyer’s work. They make the material porous and—as Henry Moore pointed out—connect one side with the other. These perforations and penetrations, which are also distinctive for the metal grid structure, make us aware of space in a more physical way. Sheetrock, a preferred material of the artist since the 1990s, is a disposable material that allows for temporary and improvised modes of construction. The material itself is thus emblematic of our fast-paced times, characterized by an expansive and homogenizing consumer culture.
The combination of metal grid installation and sheetrock sculptures create a dense labyrinth, which we are able to comprehended with the help of a floor plan. By passing through it, any sense of clear borders and endpoints gets lost. Inside and outside are inseparably merged and multiple perspectives and passageways unfold. The resulting openness is essentially a category to describe our reality, when we assume as in the logic of quantum physics, that the boundary between subject and object is fleeting. 

Franka Hörnschemeyer was born in Osnabrück in 1958 and lives and works in Berlin. She is currently a professor of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Düsseldorf. Recent solo exhibitions include Room in Room 03, Grüntuch Ernst Lab, Jüdische Mädchenschule, Berlin (2016), Lifting, ADN Pförtnerhaus, Fahrbereitschaft, Berlin (2013), Discrete Case II, Albertinum Dresden (2011), Franks International, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen (2011) and Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2007), Peenemünde, Jewish Museum, Athens (2008), Kunstpreis der Stadt Nordhorn (2006), TSE 11022, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2002), and PSE 900, Lehmbrucksaal, Kunsthalle Hamburg (2000). Notable public commissions include Trichter, Dresden, (2011), Koordinaten, Kunstwegen Station, Neugnadenfeld (2011), BFD—bündig fluchtend dicht, Paul-Löbe-Haus, Deutscher Bundestag, Berlin (2001), Kiosk und Doppelgänger, Landesversicherungsanstalt, Münster (1998). She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in institutions such as Kunstsaele, Berlin (2016), Kunstverein Hannover (2015), Museum Marta, Herford (2011), Hamburger Kunsthalle (2009), Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin (2010), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul (2002), National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (2001), Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2000), Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (1999), Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen (1998). This is her third solo exhibition at Galerie Nordenhake.