Artwork of the month February

Jessica Stockholder, #323/1999 (no title), 1999

Jessica Stockholder

* 1959 in Seattle, USA


#323/1999 (no title), 1999


Photograph, plastic foil, paper, drawing pins, metal, shelves, threaded metal bar, rubbish bin, wooden beam, brushes, string, acrylic yarn, acrylic and oil paint

Overall dimensions approx. 156 x 200 x 127 cm

Former collection Rolf Ricke at the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main

 

Jessica Stockholder has primarily made a name for herself with room-spanning, colourful installations oscillating between painting and sculpture. Most of her materials come from everyday contexts. She has no fear of getting into physical contact with three-dimensional objects that she uses as supports for her flat painting or as colour media without reservation: like a garbage can or cleaning utensils in the work #323. Stockholder's two-dimensional use of colour and her mode of employing it transform the functional materials into almost abstract forms and colours.

The objects nevertheless bespeak their origin and open up narrative elements. In #323 the backdrop is the city with its waste and accoutrements of cleanliness. Above all this lies the question of projection, with a bright pink surface mirrored in the water and the sky of the vertically hung photograph allowing the beauty of a sunrise to light up. The white surface of the waste container and the incised form in the foil placed over the photograph testify to the projection of a clear geometrical form and its distortion by means of the medium. "Narrative is not dictated by my work but the work supplies a structure and some cues that inspire a kind of storytelling completed by the viewer", explains the artist.

Stockholder relies on collage as her technique: "I see collage as a building, a process of construction; and also as a way to include a huge array of subjects. I am always trying to create enough chaos to upset my ordered thought process. The array of subjects introduced by 'collage' helps with this." This is why her works do not reveal themselves to a quick glance, cannot be grasped purely rationally; they rather spread an emotional atmosphere. At the same time, Jessica Stockholder achieves a surprising immediacy with this approach. Regardless of the determination of each measure making itself felt, her painterly sculptural works radiate a great openness.

Christiane Meyer-Stoll

<b>Jessica Stockholder, #323/1999 (no title), 1999</b>
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein highlights a work from the permanent collection each month throughout the year. Works from the collection of the Hilti Art Foundation are also included in this series on a regular basis.