“Calling Lines to Life”
The Press on The Circle Walked Casually at the Deutsche Bank KunstHalle
We’ve
never seen works from the Deutsche Bank Collection in quite this way
before: “The Circle Walked Casually” presents around 130 works on paper
in a white, endless-seeming space. The show, curated by Victoria
Noorthoorn, is focused entirely on the artworks, which appear to float
in space along an imaginary line. The press responded enthusiastically
to the unusual exhibition.
The magazine art includes The Circle Walked Casually among the exhibitions one “shouldn’t miss at any cost,” while architect, designer, writer, and Monopol editor Friedrich von Borries counts the show at the Deutsche Bank KunstHalle among the three exhibition highlights of 2013. And in the Berliner Zeitung,
Ingeborg Ruthe praises the “bold and highly poetic experiment. (…) The
images veritably float in the shadowless space, which is cotton-white
from indirect light and seems somehow unreal, like in a fairly tale of
snowy lands with smooth lines and flying colors everywhere—the pictures
are as though in continuous dialogue with one another.”
In the Saarbrücker Zeitung and on the art blog DARE,
Nicole Büsing and Heiko Klaas write: “Typically South American, the
show exudes a kind of magic realism, a liberation from static
exhibition formats and art historical pigeonholing. As a result,
proceeding from drawing to drawing, the viewer is carried along by webs
of associations and discovers how certain elements are picked up on
again and again, transform, or turn into something else altogether.”
The upshot of this is that “Noorthoorn’s
intelligently put-together show is not least a passionate plea for the
medium of drawing, so often underestimated in an exhibition
establishment in love with painting.”
“It’s magical”—as globe-M
quotes a visitor to the show. The article published in the online site
for art and culture goes on: “Following a winding organic line, the
works of art occupy the exhibition hall, forming a unique rhythm of
color and form. They augment one another, provoke and correspond to one
another.” The Informationsdienst KUNST observes that “there aren’t many exhibition spaces in Berlin that are curated in such versatile ways” as the KunstHalle. The Deutsche Bank Collection
is presented here in a way “so surprisingly different that it’s worth a
visit for the new spatial experience alone. In an undulating line
stemming from the minimal ceiling suspension method, the light works on
paper strike a great pose.” The online magazine KULTURA-EXTRA also underscores the effects of the works shown in the exhibition architecture designed by Daniela Thomas:
“Here, the delicacy of the drawings, which might otherwise be
overpowered by a conventional hanging in a museum or a gallery, becomes
a total visual pleasure; there is nothing to distract (…) from the
essential.”
Andrea Hilgenstock of the Berlin city magazine tip
also voices praise for the exhibition architecture: “It confounds our
sense of space. The exquisite selection from the corporate collection
is turned into a kind of kinetic sculpture.” She goes on to observe
that “the curator trusts in the power of the images, dispenses with
chronology and accompanying text, and allows the works to communicate
amongst themselves and speak directly to the viewer. (…) The parallels
in this inspired hanging are amazing—with abstract color studies by Katharina Grosse corresponding with Gerhard Richter.”
In the Tagesspiegel,
Marcus Woeller observes: “Noorthoorn mixes artists, techniques,
formats, genres, and disciplines in order to do justice to the
collection’s full range. But she also creates pools of communication in
which works enter into dialogue with one another (…) two naive girl
portraits by the Worpswede expressionist Paula Modersohn-Becker gaze in curiosity at a golem rising up from a blue watercolor ornament by Tony Cragg,
who otherwise usually designs monumental sculptures on the computer. At
moments like these, it becomes apparent what the old-fashioned medium
of paper has always been best suited for: the experiment, for bringing
lines and forms to life.”
“The Circle Walked Casually
forms the beginning of a series of exhibitions in which the Deutsche
Bank Collection is presented in the right light by guest curators,”
reports Sabrina Schleicher in the Kunstzeitung. “With the
current presentation, Victoria Noorthoorn has succeeded in putting up a
terrific opening show: let yourself be swept along by the chain of
associations, discover from drawing to drawing new connections, and in
the end you will leave the show buoyed by the work.”
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