In the sixth exhibition in the RADAR series, LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur and Westfälischer Kunstverein are presenting a work by the Cologne artist Jessica Twitchell. For this collaboration between the two institutions, the artist has brought together two new works in one installation.

Twitchell’s central element is reminiscent of a baldachin. The steel structure, fabricated according to the artist’s drawings, is covered with stretched fabric strips, which have been screen-printed. Evoking a decoloured rainbow, the fabric canopy’s colours range from black to white, so that the fabric contains only grey scale tones. The baldachin corresponds visually to a paper object: the posters that have been pasted high up on the wall end in a flowing movement loosely on the floor. The paste applied to the side of the motif which is turned away from the observer, dissolves the printing ink and discolours the paper which would otherwise be white on its reverse. The reddish-pink nuances which result from the standard photocopier inks, subsequently create their own painterly qualities, transforming the paper into a unique piece.

Twitchell seizes on the motif of the fabric canopy for the paper, which features a photographic reproduction of a typical workshop floor. The studded flooring, the support on which the art works are made, now stretches over us like a heaven. The second dimension is translated into a spatial one. Top becomes bottom and surfaces become spatial or vice versa.

In addition to relocating the two-dimensional reproduction of the floor motif into the exhibition space, the artist also transfers a second element. The main architectural axes of the RADAR space serve to pre-determine the work’s dimensions, resulting in the width of the windows defining the length, and the entrance door the width of the steel framework. The pasted paper area is aligned to the external stairs to the museum. Whilst the particular specifications of the exhibition space are registered in the works’ dimensions, the title “Pivot Joint” creates a connection between the two institutions housed here. Twitchell uses “Economy Class” to allude to both the sky and the art institution as places that should be accessible to society as a whole.

Jessica Twitchell (*1983, Mellrichstadt) lives and works in Cologne.

The exhibition is curated by Jenni Henke and Marijke Lukowicz.   

^{Photos: LWL/Hanna Neander}