14. April 2022, 10 – 15 Uhr
Vielen Dank an die Künstlerin Dr. Catherine Lorent für ihren Vortrag Relegation Trails – installation, painting and drawing, sound and performance & die Arbeitsbesprechungen mit unseren Teilnehmer*innen innerhalb des Studioprogrammes am BAI | Kunstschule, Kunstinkubator, Artist in Residence und Live Onlinekurse & -klassen in Berlin.
„Catherine Lorent works with an expanded Baroque concept of art that exposes the contradictions of the modern western way of life and questions dialectical thought. Her very practice undermines well-established categories, combining painting, drawing and sculpture with performance, music and theatrical stagings into visually and acoustically charged installations. Her musical projects Gran Horno (solo), Hertzangst (with Tom Früchtl and John von Bergen) in which she acts simultaneously as a visual artist and a multi-instrumentalist, epitomises this multidisciplinary approach, which at first sight appears to pander to the current trend towards “event exhibitions”. But Lorent‟s work is anything but superficial, transposing complex Baroque strategies for a sensual Gesamtkunstwerk into the modern age. Inspired or seduced by her mystical, hermetical work, spectators are often encouraged by its participatory components to give free rein to their own creativity and respond to the artist‟s idea with a subjective reinterpretation.
Highlight of her work is the installation – Relegation – shown at the Luxembourgish Pavillion at the 55th Venice Biennale. Walking through the pavilion, spectators unwittingly set off a series of electric guitars via an electro-magnetic control system; each of the guitars, which are hanging from the ceiling combined with five monumental drawings, generates a sustained sound thanks to a so-called „E-bow‟- an electrical device producing a stroke. Besides these thirteen Gibson Explorer guitars – symbols of rock culture – the rooms along the Canal Grande accommodate three concert pianos – the epitome of classical highbrow culture – which have equally been prepared with E-bows. They combine the siren-like guitar sounds with coordinated minor chords. This interplay of different instruments creates a haunting atmosphere. The title – Relegation – refers to the longstanding rejection, or “banishment”, of Baroque in the history of art, nowhere more so than in Venice, where Late Baroque architecture was stifled in its development by “anti- Baroque polemics”. Contrary to similar Baroque-averse tendencies in the current Berlin art canon, Lorent‟s work posits the formal vocabulary of Baroque, which is often dismissed as absurd, wasteful and pathetic, as a central reference point. Citing pamphlets from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Lorent, who holds a PhD in art history, appropriates Baroque iconography relating to concepts of the sublime, power and domination.
For the seminar at the Berlin Art Institute, the connections between the individual areas of activity are examined. After the presentation of her work, it is planned to hold discussions in the studios about the artistic work of the participants.“ (Text: Courtesy Dr. Catherine Lorent)
Weitere Informationen auf der Catherine Lorent & Gran Horno & Instagram Webseite.
