Since 2006, artist Martin Mlecko and art historian Wolfgang Schöddert have been running the exhibition space LOGE („lodge“). The historical porter’s lodge, located in the old Berlin newspaper quarter and in close proximity to former „Checkpoint Charlie“, is a place dedicated to space-oriented interventions and installations. Mlecko and Schöddert strictly show only one work and try to arouse the appeal of reduction in a dynamic inner-city location. They meet their visitors only at the opening evening and refuse to sell. Thus understand the LOGE as a „chapel by the wayside“, independent from the mechanisms of the art market.
Their collaboration with David Kroell who creates barely visible, sometimes even invisible room variances marked once again a congenial artistic liaison. Kroell, who today adopts space as a sculptural material which he forms and modifies, initially started with drawings. After his figures have become more and more shadowy, he raised the question if art has to be visible at all. Starting from there, he shifted his reach of action from paper to rooms. What is room/space? What defines it? What makes it take effect and how is this effectuality perceptible?
With “46 degrees” Kroell reacts to the irregular floor plan of the 3,5 square-meter lodge, which usually displays art projects as a display case only. Installations can be examined through two Tudor Arches, while it is not intended to enter the room. David Kroell took up this conceptual idea and used solely the black colored ground floor as workspace.
The title “46 degrees”, written on a small label next to the lodge window, initially only references an above-average temperature while the space seems unchanged. Then, after an undefined time, something strange happened: The black floor broke open, cracks arose and finally the floor stacked up crusted like a dry riverbed. Kroell therefore applied a sleek, clay-based and pigmented coating on the lodge floor, at first not noticeably different from the original floor. To observe its change not only means to realize evanescence, but to focus on an essential yet seldom noticed detail of the space. On the spot,„46 degrees“ increases the level of awareness with regard to the sense of space and dimension of the lodge and becomes a minimalistic created area for reflections on the quality and significance of architecture.
The art of David Kroell relates to the beauty in detail, closer examination, attention and awareness. While at first his works seem to hide from the beholder, they eventually challenge him a fortiori. Experiencing room and art in greater detail, their entities and shortcomings, as well as recognizing their presence and necessity more clearly can be possible consequences of this challenge.
David Kroger, born in Xanten in 1985, studied with Rebecca Horn and Gregor Schneider at UdK Berlin. Until 5 February, 2012 he is participating in the exhibition art price “junger westen 2011“ in Recklinghausen. David Kroell is represented by Bourouina Gallery in Berlin.
From 06 December onwards LOGE will present „Black Vogue“, a film by Andree Volkmann.
by Christine Beilharz
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