Magdalena Frauenberg

Info: It is interesting that the greek word for appearance – phaïnesthai – shares its root with phantasia as it is connected both to the imagination and to light. Ordinarily understood as that which is visible, through its etymology appearance becomes conflated with what we have only imagined exists, while light is no longer only a source of revelation, but also of illusion. We find here an contradiction between appearance and materiality, between image and object, picture and sculpture. If image is light, sculpture is weight. Sculpture is bound to the real. Magdalena Frauenberg’s new series of bronze figures depicts a fantasy of liberating sculpture from this heaviness, to make it fly. A sturdy figure – muscular thighs, rounded shoulders, neither male nor female – is picked up by a kind of human insect in an attempt to carry it off. The pair are held up from the ground by a rod, the bit of structural engineering that makes the magic possible, magic that depends on our ignoring the structure. It is sculpture approaching appearance and meeting its limit in the weight of material. (…) (…) Opening on the occasion of DC Open with Drinks & Pizza by friedrichkrefeld in the courtyard.