Ich bin nicht da, respectively I am not there, connects four or five pictures of ketchup with two texts in the form of pop song lyrics. The song relates in German and English the odd relationship between death and language, and addresses Mayo Thompson, Paul (McCarthy) and Heinz (Ketchup). Ketchup is reminiscent of red colour and performance blood, and its homophone, »catch up«, allows this song to become a love song.
Catch up! Catch up with me!
Sometimes works rub off onto other works or formats like invitation cards, newsletters, press releases or websites, either the gallery’s or mine.
Two four-piece series of new a-works each display, almost completely in white and green, four holes of little a-letters in various fonts² like stains on almost identical white or green surfaces. These a-hole-stains nearly disappear into white or green monochrome pictures. Here the hole-stains of the little a’s represent again the objet petit a, according to Lacan the object cause of desire. One of the green a objet petit a pictures has a strawberry-jam-stain on the edge of its mat. The strawberry-jam-stain will, in the course of time, continue to slip a little further down. Thus the additional two editions of the green a objet petit a-pictures vary slightly from the ones shown here.
All pictures and texts on view are pigment prints. Pigment prints are ‘extra flat’, that is, the colour totally penetrates into the paper. The white edge of the mat is merely the enlargement of the canvas size in photoshop. The strawberry-jam-stain is as flat, and on the same plane, as the green surface or the edge of the mat itself.
You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
Das Lied von den Traurigen Bäckern, and The Song of the Happy Bakers are two textual works in the form of pop song lyrics. For this exhibition, they are illustrated with pictures of raw or freshly baked pretzels, each with a text- or a picture-text-stain. Das Lied von den Traurigen Bäckern (The Song of the Sad Bakers) tells of Bäcker (bakers) who are sad, because they do not have a little a, but only a little ä in their name. The Song of the Happy Bakers is about bakers that are happy, because they have a little a, the object cause of desire, in their name. The text-stain is an excerpt of an interview with Paul McCarthy about talking to oneself during performances, and the picture-text-stain is a picture from the Internet showing Mark Leckey during a performance at Gavin Brown’s enterprise in New York. The accompanying text indicates that the colours in this exhibition are borrowed from this picture.
Lisa, we are so happy, so glaaaad!
(2x)
Somebody is wearing a golden necklace with a small golden pendant in the form of a carrot, silver with gold plating (Design Melanie Haarhaus). Via the golden carrot, the carrot in front of the nose in language, the theme of desire almost literally reappears.
I cannot even tell you, how happy I am.
Lisa Holzer
¹»I am in the middle of your picture« is a line from All I need by Radiohead, first cited in Vier Pressetexte (2009), and then again in I am not there (2011).
² white: Bitstream Vera Serif, Impact (2x), Hot Pizza, green: Akashi MF, Gather BRK, Jargon BRK, AkzidenzGroteskBE MdExt