Exhibition at HIAP Gallery Augusta

Wolf von Kries’ work is often transient, growing out of a continuous process of collecting, reconfiguring or simply associating objects and information from seemingly unrelated fields. The exhibition is a condensation of material accumulated as a result of von Kries’ walking based practice through which he extracts and recomposes variations of patterns from his immediate environment.

From Mid-January to Mid-March this year, Berlin based artist Wolf von Kries stayed on residency at HIAP in Suomenlinna. The concluding second part of the residency will take place in September. The exhibition Weaving around the Void at HIAP Gallery Augusta presents an intermediate material reflection on von Kries’ findings on the island.

In the exhibition, arrangements of things gathered across the island are juxtaposed with material from older ventures that resonate with these finds. The unstable character of these arrangements is in tune with the logic of walking with its continuously changing perspectives, relations and narratives.

Taking the parallel alignment of the Augusta Gallery’s spaces as his point of departure, von Kries turns the two near identical exhibition halls into echo chambers with their content reflecting each other in a distorted way. These communicating vessels converse with one another to intertwine notions of self and personal experience with objectified sources of knowledge. The echoes of the sonar, used for measuring the depth beneath the water surface, is mirrored by the sensation of holding up a conch to one’s ear: You think you hear the roaming of the ocean when actually it is the stream of your own blood running through your body.

The exhibition temporarily weaves together different modes of information but it is also about the process of weaving as such. It braids different threads into lines, lines into chords and those into rope thicker than an arm. It crochets doilies or patch works pieces of moving blankets from all over the world into a quilt. These activities are what they are yet they reflect the overall attitude of the exhibition: meaning crystallizing out of the noise, the world hum, only to dissolve in it again, like breathing.

Wolf von Kries in dialogue with Jenni Nurmenniemi (Curator, HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme)