Daniel von Sturmer
small world

25th October – 15th December 2012
Anna Schwartz Gallery

Mov­ing through Daniel von Sturmer’s small world’, there is a feel­ing of weight­less­ness, light­ness. Von Sturmer’s eight new video works are pre­sent­ed on LCD mon­i­tors or pro­ject­ed onto small translu­cent screens, posi­tioned on sharp, clean-cut forms of bril­liant white poly­styrene. Every aspect of the instal­la­tion and of the space is a light source, either pro­ject­ing or reflect­ing light. Each object of the instal­la­tion appears to float, as if aware of its own mass and mate­ri­al­i­ty; it dis­places its weight into air, becom­ing a flat, bright image of itself.

Echo­ing the white planes and rec­ti­lin­ear vol­ume of the gallery space, the plinths make up a sec­ond archi­tec­ture with­in the gallery, a struc­ture upon which the indi­vid­ual sce­nar­ios of the works are built, and one whose artic­u­lat­ed form refers to oth­er abstrac­tions, per­haps a sim­pli­fied con­cep­tion of the shape of a city or ear­ly Mod­ernist sculp­ture. The forms at once uni­fy and iso­late the videos. While the works share the con­tin­u­ous white sur­face, the extru­sions and returns inter­rupt the line of vision, mak­ing it impos­si­ble to see the entire­ty of each work from one position.

Pro­gress­ing from one sequence to the next, view­ing these works requires more action from the view­er than sim­ply look­ing. To watch each work, it is nec­es­sary to move, to walk, to become con­scious of the role of the entire body in the process of watch­ing. The posi­tion of each video allows cer­tain par­tial views of the oth­ers and there­by encour­ages a float­ing” between them. Read­ing is, as always, from left to right but one looks back­ward, re-read­ing works already viewed, find­ing moments of rep­e­ti­tion or cor­re­spon­dence between indi­vid­ual episodes that entail a dis­tract­ed mode of reception.

The inter­nal pace of each indi­vid­ual sequence requires a new adjust­ment of focus. Each video records a ges­ture, and the length of the action deter­mines the dura­tion of the work. The ges­ture, in turn is reg­u­lat­ed by the mate­ri­als involved: the vis­cos­i­ty of paint, or the trans­paren­cy of shad­ows. Ulti­mate­ly though, the very mate­r­i­al con­ven­tions of paint­ing, draw­ing and sculp­ture have been test­ed and removed, filmed and re-pre­sent­ed as light upon a surface.

Images

Daniel von Sturmer

small world, 2012
instal­la­tion view, Anna Schwartz Gallery

Daniel von Sturmer

small world (chalk drawing), 2012
sin­gle-chan­nel High Def­i­n­i­tion dig­i­tal video, 16:9, colour, silent
1 minute 34 seconds
Edi­tion of 3

Daniel von Sturmer

small world (desk­top sculpture), 2012
sin­gle-chan­nel High Def­i­n­i­tion dig­i­tal video, 16:9, colour, silent
3 min­utes 46 seconds
Edi­tion of 3

Daniel von Sturmer

small world (kinet­ic sculpture), 2012
sin­gle-chan­nel High Def­i­n­i­tion dig­i­tal video, 16:9, colour, sound
1 minute 10 seconds
Edi­tion of 3

Daniel von Sturmer

small world (land­scape painting), 2012
sin­gle-chan­nel High Def­i­n­i­tion dig­i­tal video, 16:9, colour, silent
5 min­utes 46 seconds
Edi­tion of 3

Daniel von Sturmer

small world (light show), 2012
sin­gle-chan­nel High Def­i­n­i­tion dig­i­tal video, 16:9, colour, silent
4 seconds

Daniel von Sturmer

small world (pen drawing), 2012
sin­gle-chan­nel High Def­i­n­i­tion dig­i­tal video, 16:9, colour, silent
1 minute 46 seconds
Edi­tion of 3

Daniel von Sturmer

small world (por­trait painting), 2012
sin­gle-chan­nel High Def­i­n­i­tion dig­i­tal video, 16:9 (ver­ti­cal), colour, silent
8 min­utes 40 seconds
Edi­tion of 3

Daniel von Sturmer

small world (shad­ow puppets), 2012
sin­gle-chan­nel High Def­i­n­i­tion dig­i­tal video, 16:9, colour, silent
3 min­utes 7 seconds
Edi­tion of 3