ART/London
“D'Sehnsucht”
Through Jan. 5

“Marco Polo imagined answering that the more one was lost in unfamiliar quarters of distant cities, the more one understood the other cities that he had crossed to arrive there...”-- Italo Calvino, “Invisible Cities”

“D'Sehnsucht” is an intimate dialogue between two artists working in London, exploring each other’s memories of their hometowns in Germany and Luxemburg.

Working in the VTO Gallery, London, artists Antonia Low and Martine Feipel communicate only through delivered letters, which are sealed and posted through a slip in the separating wall of their own isolated working spaces.

The artists translate and interpret mutual writing through drawings, sculptures, and mixed media installations. The idea is to interpret and communicate each others’ longing (Sehnsucht) in a tangible form.

Each statement on the artist’s hometown opens up another view on London in the same way that being in London transforms the objects and memories of their past. Memories become distorted and integrated with the present as the artists move through time, creating new points of view both of the past and the present.

By working only on what is communicated exclusively by the other, the artists explore the architecture of memory.

Throughout this secluded exploration of each others thoughts, the private memory of each artist will be translated into a public exhibition through digital technology.

“D’Sehnsucht” will take place on three separate platforms simultaneously: the physical gallery space, on a television platform and through an internet forum.

Two web cams record the artists working, and images will be broadcast across Europe via satellite television to the very towns they are interpreting through their work.

The artists themselves remain isolated within their workspace, unaware of what is going on beyond their space. The virtual platforms contrast with the artists intimate and traditional methods of communication, as opposed to communication via television and internet which contaminate the issues of time, place, reality, memory, private and public which are integral to the project.

Find it: VTO
96 Teesdale St.
London (UK)
Get info: +(0)207 729 5629

Find art events in other cities, in the DEC/JAN issue of "Arte Six."