rag minus tag, 2018
Used carnival plastic lamp covers from the 80s, light bulbs, LEDs, metal, cable, seven different objects, dimensions variable / EVERYTHING AND THE OPPOSITE, TOO.
The seven different objects of rag minus tag take on the coat of arms with its characteristic form, its codification and heraldry, deforming and abstracting it in the seven sculptural light objects. They disrupt what is inherent in the coat of arms and with it a certain established tradition.
Initially, the seven sculptures appear like a conglomeration, a collective of individual colorful objects thrown together. rag minus tag shines bright, it shimmers and glows - yet its specific meaning and origin remains unidentifiable. They represent themselves, as enigmatic, clownish figures, as neon signs or relics of a culture or tradition that claims to have domesticated the capital of the coats of arms, but at the same time is (has been) a part of it.
The brightly colored light of the used fairground lamps shines on to the metal bodies of the sculptures bringing a warmth into the exhibition space and awakening memories of youth and of the fairground as a temporary place of recreation. Carnivals and fairs function as social and popular spaces for short-lived interactions and encounters, above all they are places of pleasure in an almost dreamlike world. Positioned in various configurations, they (rag minus tag) linger here immersing themselves and their immediate surroundings in light and space – like a parallel version of reality, of the familiar landscape of light and neon advertisements that, illuminated, split and divide here, in part blinking and self contaminated by it.
In the solo exhibition EVERYTHING AND THE OPPOSITE, TOO. the sculptures rag minus tag (1-7) were shown together with the photograph Angel.
The title of the exhibition EVERYTHING AND THE OPPOSITE, TOO. can be read as a commentary, as an empty possession, as a kind of nothing, or even as a denial. It can also be understood inversely: as a reversal, a revolt or a feeling. Our understanding and experience of freedom can unite or divide us. These opposite movements are able to produce synergetic processes, concepts and structures. Even feelings. The contaminated, the transitory, the invisible becomes a ragtag object in the exhibition.
Photo: Dörthe Boxberg, Helmut Nick, Thomas Brill, Selma Gültoprak
Installation view: artothek