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01.06.―29.07.2012
Core, Cut, Care
Oldenburger Kunstverein
Germany
Text by: Kristina Scepanski





After her exhibition “Hang Harder” at NAK. Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Lena Henke now continues her two-part exhibition project at Oldenburger Kunstverein with the programmatic title “Core, cut, care”. Through both concrete and abstract approaches, established concepts of space and spatiality, materiality and staging are being gutted, or ‘cored,’ ripped apart and reconstructed again. Henke’s project poses a contradiction to the general rhythm and the obsessive innovation and originality of today’s contemporary art world. The material Henke uses in Oldenburg is the output of the exhibition’s first manifestation. Developed and built on site in Aachen, this first part of the show mirrored the artist’s rather introverted creative process in the studio or workshop. In Aachen, with her exploration of the prototypical, and only allegedly neutral exhibition paradigm of the white cube, Henke dwelt on immanent art and institution specific discourses. In Oldenburg, however, she moves the viewer to the fore. The plywood panels treated with epoxy resin and tarpaper no longer form components of an inverted white cube but lose their flatness and, in their semi-circle formations, are reminiscent of presentation surfaces, displays, seating or other utility objects. Henke opens up her own hermetic production process of intimate reflection on artistic creation and exhibition to a presentation of potentially usable objects. By transforming her working material in such a way, Henke not only bursts open its inherent fixity and inertia but at the same time questions conventional distinctions between surface and core, content and form, and, not least, a certain institutional exclusivity that manifests itself in architecture and design. She reveals the seductive powers of interior design that surrounds us everywhere, that is supposed to trigger our well-being, and that, lastly, influences our actions. Some of the plinth-like objects in the exhibition display sketches of the furniture and interior design of cafés, which Henke had made in New York, Glasgow and Sweden. These, as well as the additional photographs, elucidate again the contrast between traditional craftsmanship, with its traces of labour, and immaculate surface design. Not least, this can be read as a latent comment on the standard and uniform look of public spaces in today’s globalized consumer and commodity culture. Lena Henke’s installation successfully dissolves exhibition and design conventions while always keeping the balance between her project’s conceptual rigour and the powerful physical presence and impressive materiality of her works.

-Kristina Scepanski

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