| japanese I english |
Christiane Loehr, "Lined"September 5th - October 10th, 2015 taguchi fine art, Tokyo |
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Born in Wiesbaden in Germany in 1965, Christiane Loehr now resides in Cologne, Germany and Prato, Italy. After studying Egyptology, Archeology and History at the Friedrich-Wilhelm-University, Bonn and Art Education and German studies at the Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, she got Meisterschuelerin from Jannis Kounellis at the Art Academy in Duesseldorf in 1996. She has held many exhibitions all around the world as at the Villa and Collection Panza in Varese in 2010. Her works are housed in many museums and prominent private collections. Christiane Loehr's examination of form and space is achieved by material that is uncommon to the history of sculpture. She creates her sculptures with natural materials as plant seeds, plant stems, horse hairs and dog hairs. Cushion with the fluff of dandelion, temple with the pile of ivy seeds, dome with grass stalks, bag of hairnet filled with thistle seeds, catfs cradle like form with needles and horse hairs, and so on. They are physically so small and look so delicate that we could miss them at first. Once we come close and observe them, however, they would be transformed into very strong construction dominating the surrounding space and we might be overwhelmed by the power of them. Due to the uniqueness of her materials for the sculptures, one might think that her concern lies in plants and animals, which is not correct. The prettiness and the beauty that originally belong to the organic form and the color of plants are of course elements of her works but that is not the essential to her works. The reason why Christiane Loehr decided to choose plants and animal hairs is that she is accustomed to them since her childhood and therefore knows their characters very well. In addition, she got a conviction to do this from her experience of the study with Jannis Kounellis who is the center of an Italian art movement, "Arte Povera", that is characterized by the use of familiar things we can see in our daily life but unusual to sculpture as its material. The research of Christiane Loehr to come to a form is nothing less than to carefully and patiently examine the structure and function that the material itself has inherently, and then to reconstruct them so as to visually amplify those structures and functions. Through the conversation with the material and its surrounding space, she explores the mathematical law, the power, the order, the structure behind this visible world that establish nature and organic matters, trying to seek what gives the unity to this world, makes this world together. The same is true for her works on paper, her pencil drawings and oil pastel drawings. Even though she uses the form of plant or grass as a motif, she never traces anything in front of her. As a sculptor, her interest is only one point that is "how to divide the two dimensional white space and make a new order", which gives a strong sense of tension to her works on paper. She is getting well noticed in Japan by her participation in the group show "Lifescape" at Shiseido Gallery in Tokyo last autumn and her solo show "Encircling the Orbit" at Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum in Shizuoka this year. On this occasion, horse hair works, large works on paper with oil pastel and pencil drawings will be installed. Checklist of the installation 1. Untitled, 2015 oilpastel on paper, 150 x 120 cm 2. Untitled, 2015 oilpastel on paper, 150 x 120 cm 3. Untitled, 2015 oilpastel on paper, 150 x 120 cm 4. Untitled, 2015 oilpastel on paper, 150 x 120 cm 5. Untitled, 2015 oilpastel on paper, 113 x 77 cm 6. Untitled, 2015 oilpastel on paper, 113 x 77 cm 7. Hairnet (Oktogon), 2015 horse hair, needle, ca. 40 x 35 x 5 cm 8. Small Hairwork (Bridge), 2015 horse hair, needle ca. 36 x 32 x 17 cm, pedestal 2 x 15 x 8.5 cm 9. Untitled, 2015 pencil on paper, 27 x 20 cm 10. Untitled, 2015 pencil on paper, 27 x 20 cm 11. Untitled, 2015 pencil on paper, 27 x 20 cm 12. Two small Hairnets, 2015 horse hair, needle ca. 40 x 23 x 17 cm, pedestal 2 x 15 x 8.5 cm |