"Vision, Uncertainty, and Knowledge of Materials are inevitabilities that all artists must acknowledge and learn from: vision is always ahead of execution, knowledge of materials is your contact with reality, and uncertainty is a virtue."
David Bayles, in Art and Fear, 1993
David Bayles, in Art and Fear, 1993
The Torment of Matter is an interrogation of the nuanced interplay between artistic intentionality and the agency of matter. This exhibition is premised on two interdependent paradigms: one in which materiality is asserted as an active determinant of thematic discourse and another where conceptual imperatives prescribe material selection. This exhibition examines the nuanced dialogue between artistic practice, material presence, and the philosophical implications of media in contemporary art.
The works brought together in this exhibition underscore a purposeful engagement with material as a site of conceptual and sensorial negotiation. By placing the inherent properties of media at the heart of artistic discourse, the exhibition invites viewers to examine the semiotic implications and underlying meaning embedded within material choices.
Aside from simply serving as a medium, the materials function as forces that shape the creative process itself. The viscosity of oil paint, the resistance of metal, the fragility of paper, or the unpredictability of chemical reactions challenge artists, forcing them to operate within or push against these constraints. Through this dynamic, struggle itself becomes an element of meaning in the work.
The Torment of Matter highlights the evolving interaction between medium and artistic intent, revealing how material constraints influence creative decisions. It examines the intricate web connecting material selection, conceptual purpose, and thematic depth, prompting a more reflective engagement with the layered connections that shape artistic creation. The exhibition also emphasises the transformative power of artists who manipulate raw materials into expressive works and consider experimental practices as integral to extending the boundaries of conventional media. By featuring works that engage with and transcend traditional material limitations, the exhibition encourages conversations on artistic innovation and experimentation.
At its core, the exhibition engages with the tension between artistic control and the intrinsic properties of materials. The presented artworks reveal a visible negotiation between idea and medium, demonstrating how engaging with materiality contributes to artistic meaning. This ongoing exchange between narrative intent and physical form encourages the audience to engage more deeply with the artist’s creative process, uncovering the complexities behind each work. Creation itself emerges as a process of adaptation, resistance, and unexpected discovery.
Until the 20th century, art materials were perceived as secondary to the concept behind them. The idea, or Concetto, was considered to be the most important part of the work itself. Following Plato's theory of ideas, the physical material was viewed as a "necessary evil", a means of representing an idea, but the least important part of the entire work. Materials were expected to be durable but not overly valuable to not distract from the image, which itself existed primarily by the artist's ability to conceive it in their mind.
Only in recent years have art scholars developed an iconology of materials—understanding the importance of substances in contemporary art. Meaning is something encountered in the work itself, but in order to understand the 'language' of materials, a thorough consideration of the artist's association processes is required. This may not always be evident to the viewer and could require additional studying to fully achieve a true understanding. Further investigation into the materials’ production process and its handling by the artist may provide additional depth to a work’s significance.
In summary, The Torment of Matter examines the symbiotic and often challenging relationship between artist and material, offering insights into the delicate balance between limitation and possibility. By refocusing our attention on the creative tensions that arise in artistic practice, the exhibition reveals a space where resistance, transformation, and adaptation converge to generate new meaning while pushing the boundaries of contemporary art.
The expansion of boundaries is present in artist duo Hennicker-Schmidt’s Weiche Zeit (Soft Time) video installation. With clay and the human body as the main materials, the one-channel video is presented as documentation of a site-specific piece at the MaximiliamsForum in Munich. An ominous AI-generated voice appears in intervals, reminding the participants of the potential for deep experiences, adding technology as the omnipresent medium. In this paradoxical space, the meta-work shows the very current tension between the robotised self and our visceral need to define what being human is.
The expansion of boundaries is present in artist duo Hennicker-Schmidt’s Weiche Zeit (Soft Time) video installation. With clay and the human body as the main materials, the one-channel video is presented as documentation of a site-specific piece at the MaximiliamsForum in Munich. An ominous AI-generated voice appears in intervals, reminding the participants of the potential for deep experiences, adding technology as the omnipresent medium. In this paradoxical space, the meta-work shows the very current tension between the robotised self and our visceral need to define what being human is.
A meditation on time, place and memory, Linus Rauch’s site-specific work _yet (Bethanien)_ conceptually and formally engages the architecture, history and materiality of the exhibition space. The building, housing Bethanien Art Center today, was originally constructed in 1845-47 as a hospital, in a characteristic type of yellow brick. For the intervention, one of these bricks was ground to a fine pigment. Rauch then applied the resulting paint directly onto the walls in the form of repeating round arches. Their shape replicates a detail of the architecture, the twin windows of the facade. Confronting the viewer with their physical presence, the ephemeral nature of the work invites a moment of reflection.
Geometry is an essential element in Andrew Moncrief’s large canvases. It helps extend his paintings beyond the edges of the two-dimensional and enhances the themes within the frame. His imagery confuses perception, opening a dialogue about visibility vs the unseen, and presence vs absence. There is an inherent turmoil to these paintings that is not evidently revealed but subtly felt when standing before them. Moncrief's practice reaffirms the injunction of material to modality, revealing the substantive limitations of the medium can run concurrently with thinking about other conceptual and spatial avenues.Rachel Isabel’s expressive collages are carefully assembled to transport the viewer into their inner meanings. The fervent presence of her work Runnin’wild is juxtaposed with the calm energy in Exhale. Her digital collages and mixed-media techniques navigate themes of identity and belonging. An important element in her work is the presence of water, which is used as a conduit to explore Black womanhood, fluidity and the interconnectedness between body and environment. With these subjects at hand, the artist creates digital collages in which the layers are not only noticeable but necessary in expanding the meaning beyond them.
Patrick Tagoe-Turkson's work is characterised by the careful and intentional transformation of plastic waste and discarded rubber into vibrant and striking displays of colour. This process has become a defining feature of his art. His pieces, from the series Objects Of Value, engage viewers in a way that makes it difficult to recognize their original forms. His work takes flip-flops that have washed up on the beaches of the Atlantic Ocean along the coast of southern Ghana and reconstructs them into meticulously composed pieces of art, recontextualising and expanding the meaning of human impact on our environment. His work ultimately poses the question of how art can promote sustainability and become a medium to reclaim, transform, and restore.
Kristian Askelund’s large canvases use unusual materials to tell us another story of human impact. One in which beauty and destruction inhabit the same space. Based on satellite images from the massive open-pit mining operations in the Athabasca Oil Sands, Canada, his mixed-media work Frontier 6 contains the very material being excavated in this area: bitumen. Along with a less abstract approach in the more recent survey grid. cell 2 - 4. he invites tension into the work, which shows the anthropogenic impact on our nature in its rawest forms. By bringing this to the forefront, the artist asks a question with many possible answers, showing that our current presence in the world lies in the grey areas.
Destruction and human impact are also present in Jeewi Lee’s minimalist works. Ashes To Ashes takes a wildfire that occurred in 2018 in Monte Serra, Italy, as the starting point for her soap sculptures, created from ash and coal of the Tuscan forest’s scorched trees. She stamps each bar of soap by hand with a piece of scorched bark, leaving behind remnants of a dire past in the freshly crafted soaps. With this, Lee not only alters scorched organic matter into sculptural form but allows the material’s origin—its trauma, history, and fragility—to dictate both the aesthetic and conceptual trajectory of the work. It thematises regeneration and the cycle of nature and, by recontextualising a material born from the destruction of our nature, Lee evidences one of the most insurmountable truths: humans can’t outlive human destruction, but nature can.
Elisabeth Jahrmärker's practice exemplifies the tension between intentionality and the agency of material, which is particularly apparent in her transfiguration of construction site remnants. By reconstituting such materials, she prioritises the materiality and histories of these items as physical objects—she allows the materials' rawness, instability, and processual nature to determine the final form of the work. Jahrmärker does not overly exert control over the media; she embraces the disposition of materials, and dissolution and reconstruction emerge as themes. In doing so, her work exemplifies the dynamic struggle between idea and material, where the unfinished and the transient become sites of meaning. From the same interest in these ephemeral spaces springs her photographic works.
Pako Quijada’s work scrutinises the transience of emotions, transformation, and memory. In their works, they examine how materials—landscapes, photographs, and organic elements—mediate memory, trauma, and art. Santuario (Sanctuary) features photos taken on the last day they spent in nature with their mother, months before she passed away. Printed on vellum and paired with pressed flora in lightboxes, they question how objects carry emotional weight. The film End & Away, created after their mother’s death, turns grief into a pilgrimage, and features the artist’s sisters, with nature both witnessing and participating in mourning. Quijada’s works highlight how materials shape meaning, intertwining media, memory, and personal history to evoke powerful narratives.
Kwang Sung Park’s art reflects on the meaning of Avoir et être (To have and to be), exploring the essence of life through philosophical inquiry and the materiality of painting. He views painting as an expression of existence and life’s irrationality, drawing from Eastern ink-and-wash traditions where the brush acts as an extension of the artist’s body and spirit. Park’s work highlights painting as a process of recording, where movement, memory, and material resistance intersect. His practice emphasises how meaning arises from the tension between ideas, execution, and the properties of materials.
There were many areas in which the legendary German artist Käthe Kollwitz excelled: printmaking, etching, sculpting, painting… But if there is one area that made her one of the most important artists of the 20th century, is how materiality and subject matter are so intrinsically connected that it’s hard to imagine any other way. The print presented here, however, from her Peasants’ War cycle, was created in its first edition in 1906 and takes the historical event from the 16th century as inspiration. Kollwitz portrayed war in many mediums throughout her career, but it wasn’t until her War series (1918-1922/1923) that she would be content with the material she used to represent these atrocities. In that way, this earlier work sums up perfectly the concept of The Torment Of Matter, by showing the tension between the artist’s intention, the work’s themes and how it’s created, while also connecting the past with our current times. An artist deeply preoccupied with the impact of war and whose work was marked by losing her son just a few years later during World War I, her oeuvre offers a reflection, a caution and a raw representation of the torment that war brings with it. Unfortunately, the topics in her work continue to be relevant today.