Mirjam Thomann
Out of Shape
27. Juli – 1. Oktober 2012

Lichthaus Arnsberg presents the solo exhibition "Out of Shape" by Mirjam Thomann.

For the exhibition at Lichthaus Arnsberg, Mirjam Thomann is literally giving her work a fresh coat of paint. The starting point for the modification is the question of what happens to a work that is removed from the specific architectural and institutional context in which it was created and transferred to another location. In a methodically designed experiment, Thomann is developing an on-site modified version of an installation at Lichthaus Arnsberg, which was first shown in 2009 on the occasion of her exhibition at "Casco-Office for Art, Design and Theory" in Utrecht/Netherlands.

"Shapes, Dimensions, Possibilities" (2009), the original title of the work, referred to the location of the exhibition in two ways. On the one hand, a scaffolding made of painted wooden beams - a permanent installation that served as multifunctional exhibition architecture - was extended into the outdoor area. Secondly, Thomann transferred anamorphic forms from photographs of the Rietveld Schröder House, which is located in the immediate vicinity of the Casco exhibition space, into the wooden beam grid. The rotating, distorted surfaces thus hark back to the iconic images of one of the most frequently reproduced modernist architectures in the world. In keeping with the historical model, they were painted in the primary colors red, yellow and blue, which were culturally influenced by the De Stijl movement, to which the architect Gerrit Rietveld belonged. 

With "Out of Shape", Thomann transfers the installation to the Lichthaus Arnsberg - a postmodern building made of glass and concrete with adjoining landscaping in the middle of a historic monastery complex. Like a temporary extension to the glass façade, "Out of Shape" goes beyond the architecture, so that the installation is largely relocated to the publicly accessible monastery courtyard, further dissolving the boundaries between inside and outside. With an obvious delight in deconstructive processes on the one hand and re-contextualizations on the other, Thomann paints over the original red, yellow and blue surfaces of the installation with a brown mixture of all these colors. However, the first application of paint is still visible at the edges. The asymmetrical forms are partially mirrored and can be rotated on hinges. The spatial model can thus be changed by the visitor's actions and the brown color surfaces can be placed in relation to the surroundings in ever-changing ways.

Mirjam Thomann was born in Wuppertal in 1978. She studied at Kingston University of London and the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg and lives in Berlin.