ART CITIES: Zurich-Gerwald Rockenschaub
Gerwald Rockenschaub works within a formal repertoire that he began developing in the 1980s when he was a central figure in the emerging neo-geo movement. Uniquely influenced by his work as a techno DJ and composer of electronic music, Rockenschaub absorbs the everyday imagery and forms of logos, traffic signs, and pictograms to produce sculptures, wall installations, and animations that render an aura of hyperrealist perfection.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Galerie Eva Presenhuber Archive
Gerwald Rockenschaub has been transforming spaces with minimalist multimedia installations for around forty years. With constantly changing shapes, colors, sizes, materials and technologies – sometimes abstract, sometimes simplified figurative, but always with radical reduction and laconic smoothness – his installations create visual sounds and rhythms that relate to the architecture in question, setting it in tension and vibration like a musical composition. Rockenschaub, who has also worked as a techno DJ, composes his art like musical tracks: empty spaces correspond to pauses, settings create sounds and beats. For “bass+ (re)modification”, his new exhibition, the artist has produced rectangular, monochrome lacquered MDF panels of varying color and size, which he positions above and below a continuous horizontal line on the walls of the exhibition space. In this way he organizes the space and creates a pulsating atmosphere that feels like a soundscape – stimulating visually, physically and emotionally. The idea of painting evoked by the colored MDF panels is completely removed: In their pointed interplay, the objects experience an enormous expansion and completely transform their surroundings. Instead of looking at pictures, we experience the whole space as a picture. Rockenschaub never thinks in terms of individual works. Each object has a specific function within the overall context of an exhibition. The precise placement of the elements in dialogue with the architecture is crucial to creating dynamism. Although the artist designs his installations precisely on the computer in advance, the final steps are ultimately spontaneous and playful. Despite their edgy coolness, playfulness and subtle humor are the parameters within which Rockenschaub’s works unfold their energy. This is precisely what his work, which emerged in the 1980s in the context of the Neo Geo movement, is all about: using radically reduced means to achieve powerful atmospheric effects that appeal to all the senses. In contrast to classical minimal or conceptual art, he creates a mixture of pop and primary structures that recall traditional genres of art history as well as our thoroughly designed everyday life. Rockenschaub nonchalantly disrupts both – and ends up somewhere between fun, funky and frivolous: with an art that defies any art historical categorization.
Photo: Gerwald Rockenschaub, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber
Info: Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Maag Areal, Zahnradstr. 21, Zurich, Switzerland, Duration: 16/3-18/5/2024, Days & Hours: Wed-Fri 12:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, www.presenhuber.com/
