Young, Berlin-based artist Alexej Meschtschanow (born Kiev, 1973) is beginning to earn himself a reputation as one of the most intriguing artists of a generation of sculptors now emerging on the Berlin scene. The art world began to realize that something new and exciting might be afoot earlier this year when leading German gallery, Eigen+Art, decided to devote their entire booth at Art Forum Berlin to sculpture.
Meschtschanow was part of a group show at Eigen+Art back in 2004 and the artist currently has a solo exhibition entitled 'Amorphe Form in Mausefalle' (on until 6 January 2007), at Amerika, a young gallery that is working hard to profile some of Berlin's strongest and most interesting young artists.
Meschtschanow's show reveals a series of works featuring everyday, 'old-fashioned', 'bourgeois' furniture (the sort you might expect to find at your granny's), which has been transformed through the addition of what the artist describes as steel 'squiggles' and metal corsetry.
Some of Meschtschanow's objects appear gagged as well as bound by this corsetry, and there's more than a hint of a power struggle, one that at times is expressed in the form of the institution vs the individual, as in the sinister 'Bopparder Kanapee' (2005), described on its caption as an 'adjustable installation', where a number of chairs are either forced into tightly packed rows, facing each other, thus conjuring up an intense, mass-interrogation session; or strapped against a wall, their backs facing out, suggesting a form of torturous corporal punishment.
Meschtschanow is a master of the personification of objects, using them to evoke a sense of pathos or horror merely by the act of careful placement and the juxtaposition of the homeliness of 'old-fashioned' furniture, against the sort of structures we might associate with prisons, or old-fashioned institutions. He is also apparently fascinated by the absurdity of life - the quest for the fulfillment of desire, the preoccupation with fashion, and devotion to material gain.
'o.T.' (2006) is an amorphous mass of steel piping, coiled round and half melted down into a form that resembles an up-turned, ready-to-roast chicken. With a little imagination, the piece might also take on the form of an animal skull, replete with a fine collection of horns. It's a bizarre ensemble, seemingly pointless. Non functional, and very ugly, the pipes (or horns) nevertheless reach forward to grasp and hold up a mirror to itself in a desperate act of vanity despite its aappearance - a humourous although somewhat pathetic evocation perhaps, of our obsession with surface image and our constant pursuits after pointless objects.
'Schlitten' (2006) is a rectangular box formed from rough wooden planks. From its shape it looks as though it might contain rifles or other weapons, but there's also something coffin-like about its simple appearance - simple, that is, apart from the strange, twisting horns that protrude from the side of the box and curl round to form a clamp over the lid. These 'squiggles' are what Meschtschanow regards as epitomizing 'the senselessly arranged ornamentation (that) revolts the orderliness connoisseur'. He believes that 'in line with actual rubbish' ornamentation is regarded as aesthetic contamination...and if an idea of functionality is neglected, squiggles shoot up like mushrooms after the rain'.
Meschtschanow goes on to point out that we will never beat the squiggle - in effect, the squiggle will win, for even the most aesthetically beautiful of functional creations must in some way, at some time, lose their functional purpose and rely on their sense of beauty to attract attention. And what, Meschtschanow seems to be asking, happens then?
Alexej Meschtschanow will be showing new work in the project space of Arndt+Partners in Zurich in the summer.
Jane Neal
Alexej Meschtschanow
Until 6 January
AMERIKA
Brunnenstraße 7
10119 Berlin
Sebastian Klemm
T: +49 (0)30 40 50 49 53
www.amerika-berlin.de
Alexej Meschtschanow, Bopparder Kanapee, 2005
Alexej Meschtschanow, Schlitten, 2006
Images courtesy by AMERIKA, Berlin and the artist.
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