'Knock knock, who's there?' 2008
140 x 180cm
'Weisser Elephant', 2008
180 x 140
'My installation is the epitome of the 'Scheiternhaufen'. The human being wishes for success, prosperity, palaces glittering lustres; instead, on his way, he has only left behind symbols of his failure: 'Scheiter(n) haufen' - and those on clay feet (a fantasy expression made up of the words Scheiterhaufen (pyre) and scheitern (to fail), which in this form does not actually exist in the German language).'
Angelika J. Trojnarski
The title of Angelika J. Trojnarski's show, 'Scheiternhaufen', programmatically stands for the work which she is showing in her first solo exhibition at the Anna Klinkhammer Gallery. By turning the gallery into an installation, she provides space for profound thoughts and experiences.
When entering, the viewer is first of all irritated by an empty dwelling with bare walls that is only supported by a wooden-slat construction. Merely the ceiling is tangible: covered with white wallpaper, from it hanging an old, golden chandelier. The floor is covered with dried mud and sediment. The chandelier appears to be intact since the mud masses do not seem to have reached it.
This grotesque impression reminds us of Pompeii. However, the sight of this mud ruin immediately brings to mind pictures of recent flooding catastrophes like, for instance, in New Orleans. In contrast to Pompeii where a natural catastrophe took place, Angelika J. Trojnarski rather points towards man, who with outlandish projects turns into his own catastrophe and thereby causing nature to go off.
The flat scenery of the house accentuates the fragility of this human endeavour. This stage character somehow transforms the gallery into a non-place, a kind of foil, in front of which the dreams, aspirations and fears of those who wish to self-actualise unfold, whereby the installation also appears as an allegory, in which the water symbolises man's fatuous ways: 'Embark on something new' and 'devil may care'! The room as a symbol! Wooden remainder, on which's planks mankind will repeat its mistakes without any moral.
Protagonists on the installation's surrounding walls are once conquered living spaces or life's dreams, abandoned and neglected non-places, products of decay and neglect, playing fields for human failure. The canvas- and paper works show dilapidated ships and creaking wrecks, supported by wooden scaffolding or gone aground and houses stripped of their stability and collapsed.
The critic Thomas W. Kuhn recognizes in her motives the tradition of the Vanitas-theme in which the decay of human artefacts stands for the transience of human life and the threat to culture. Angelika J. Trojnarski's painting technique reflects the subjects of her works. Applied layer by layer, not unlike weathered priming, comparable to the plastering of old walls and rusty scaring of old metal.
Stefanie Lucci
Angelika J. Trojnarski
Until 7 March
Anna Klinkhammer
Dusseldorf
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