The Immense Ventriloquism - Part.2
TC McCormack and invited artists: Clara Bausch, Matthew Burbidge, Ingo Gerken, Marie von Heyl, Michael Schultze, Raaf van der Sman & Oliver Zwink
Nationalmuseum, 100 UrbanStrasse, Berlin. 2020
The Immense Ventriloquism – Part.2 presents new work by TC McCormack, and showcases new and existing artworks by seven guest artists. Presenting a new installation; Hybrid Display Structures, with an accompanying film: Magic isn’t Magic, it is Always Something Else, and presented in conjunction with a selection of paintings and prints by guest artists Clara Bausch, Matthew Burbidge, Ingo Gerken, Marie von Heyl, Michael Schultze, Raaf van der Sman and Oliver Zwink.
The second in a series of exhibitions; The Immense Ventriloquism – Part.2 explores the conditions of exhibiting, the nature of display and even how we address artworks. TC’s installation Hybrid Display Structures foregrounds the exhibition’s curatorial mode of address, by directly corresponding with the paintings and prints of the guest artists, and by adopting the physiognomy of exhibition display architecture - in order to examine the autonomous and authorial positions of artworks.
Taking the form of floor to ceiling panels, the fabric based digital prints are orientated across the gallery walls and suspended from a lightweight framework that reaches into the exhibition space. The visual language of the hybrid panels speaks of calibration and optical registers, as well as decentred patterns and a slippage of surface.
This exhibition presents an intimate and immersive selection of paintings and prints, which when viewed collectively reveal liminal and emergent qualities. Certainly these artworks elude and challenge any positional or situational play, this gathering of exquisite voices pass up on the measures: indeed they seem to speak through us.
At the centre of Magic isn’t Magic, it is Always Something Else is a voice that challenges the viewer’s expectations of the role and content of the film, through a deciphering of its visual information, while loosening the pervasive traditions of narrative. Magic isn’t Magic extends the curatorial premise of The Immense Ventriloquism – Part.2, in part through referencing the visual language of the hybrid panels, and by speaking back to or ventriloquizing the artworks by the guest artists.
Paintings featured:
Paravent, by Michael Schultze (2020) Wood, Tempera on Canvas, S. 180/145
Mask, by Raaf van der Sman (2020) Egg tempera on paper, S. 55/32
‘Untitled’ (BVFS, Nr.1) & ‘Untitled’ (BVFS, Nr.7) by Oliver Zwink (2017) Acrylic, wax and coloured pencil on paper S. 110 x 155 & (2018) Acrylic on paper, S. 110 x 155
Prints featured:
Shadows, by Clara Bausch (2019) silkscreen mounted on dibond, S.68/98
An Image to Be Read, by Matthew Burbidge (2011) Print S.61/43
BIBLIOSCULPTURE 012 (GROSSES TUCH) & BIBLIOSCULPTURE 016 (BEI BUCHHOLZ) by Ingo Gerken (2012) Photographic print, S. 348/349
“Phantom Limb” by Marie von Heyl (2015) Photographic print diptych & cast metal, S. 22.8/31.3
Film: Magic isn’t Magic, it is Always Something Else (2020) Single channel digital video with audio (08.24)
The first exhibition in the series The Immense Ventriloquism was presented at nationalmuseum, Kruezberg, Berlin in 2017 and featured a video diptych and an Assemblage platform by TC, in dialogue with a selection of sculptures and drawings by eight guest artists.
The title The Immense Ventriloquism takes inspiration from a poem by Wallace Stevens, ‘Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself’ (The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, Alfred A Knopf, New York 1954.)