translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
111010: Rauminhalt Laurent Ajina – Black Intervening Object
Rauminhalt
Laurent Ajina – Black Intervening Object
01.10.10 until 30.10.10
Creating space for content
During this year’s vienna design week, Rauminhalt once again surprises with a remarkable exhibition. In Black Intervening Object the French artist Laurent Ajina combines significant design objects with his paintings and thereby structures the gallery into specific space volumes.
The line-mesh paintings, all exclusively made with a black oil crayon, correspond with their objective and enigmatic counterparts, thereby creating create a clearly defined space. The artist abstained from using colours, as he believes that colour distracts from the perspective and spatial effect. Oftentimes the structural quality of the painting and the object correspond with one another, as in Ajina's painting “Territorie26, gloss naissant” and the sofa “Loveseat” (Gruppe B.R.A.N.D., 1985). The permeability, which defines both the formation of the sofa’s iron frame and the graphic net of the corresponding painting, allows a spatial continuum to develop that envelops both.
A kilim (Morocco, 20th Century) occupies the entire space along the floor beneath “Territoire28”. The relationship between the two-dimensional quality of the drawing and the feel of the carpet seems inverted. The canvas, which is spanned beyond the stretcher frame and the drawing, which goes over the edge, acquires a physical substance that is finds it active continuation in the pure black of the carpet - thereby appropriating volume.
In contrast, the spatial structure of a small painting leaning against the wall “Oasis1”, and a pair of shoes made of black PVC (Zaha Hadid, 2009), which face the painting, mediates intimacy.
The line constructions exemplify Laurent Ajina’s artistic uniqueness – a clear example is the intervention that he constructed in reference to Charlotte Parriand’s chair “Synthesis of Art” (1954). The chair, wedged into the wall, seems either to have outgrown the limitation of vertical space or to have broken it with all its energy, which in turn is restored back into the wall by way of the painted lines. This installation audaciously takes possession of the room.
In his paintings, Laurent Ajina attempts to construct perspectives and space with precisely set lines, which are either compressed in extreme concentration to form a tactile quality or powerfully blown up and fragmented. In a confrontation with the respective objects, this principle is maintained. Both media forms comment each other and complement each other discursively - thereby creating an extensive area of tension, which should be consciously perceived as an intrinsic volume with all its decisive components and definitive qualities.
By Margareta Sandhofer
Rauminhalt
1040 Vienna, Schleifmühlgasse 13
Tel: +43 1 409 98 92
Fax: +43 1 585 57 69
Email: design@rauminhalt.com
http://www.rauminhalt.com
Opening hours: Mon – Fri: Noon – 7 p.m., Sat 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
111010
rauminhalt - space & content
1040 Wien, Schleifmühlgasse 13
Tel: +43 650 409 98 92
Email: design@rauminhalt.com
http://www.rauminhalt.com
Öffnungszeiten: Mo.-Fr. 12.00 bis 19.00 Uhr, Sa. 10.00 bis 15.00 Uhr
rauminhalt - space & content
1040 Wien, Schleifmühlgasse 13
Tel: +43 650 409 98 92
Email: design@rauminhalt.com
http://www.rauminhalt.com
Öffnungszeiten: Mo.-Fr. 12.00 bis 19.00 Uhr, Sa. 10.00 bis 15.00 Uhr