27. Apr - 28. May 2017

The cat was quiet until morning

With works by Ivonne Dippmann

Drawings, artist books, large paintings and installations, textile works, films and performances – Ivonne Dippmann‘s work is multilayered, full of vibrant energy, experiment and technical precision.

Her new installation is a monumental, rotating machine which dominates the space. A diptych is set up by two square frames made of steel, both parts are interconnected by bars. This metal frame is covered with colourful woolen threads, evoking a delicate drawing. Radiating from the rotor planes it unfolds itself into the open space where it forms a compact volume, a light and permeable body which ties together the two counterparts. The construction is slowly rotated by an engine. While moving, the threads overlap, resulting in manifold interferences and op-art patterns. The rotation is controlled by an algorithm which slows it down, stopps it, or suddenly changes the direction – the machine seems to have it’s own mind.

In a way the construction resembles an industrial weaving loom. The wool is a remnant from VEB Polar Karl-Marx-Stadt, a prospering GDR textile factory. Here, in today’s Chemnitz where decaying industrial ruins echo a spirit of innovation long gone, the artist grew up. Biographical traces and polarities subtly infiltrate her work – history as material, objects and words as storage of memories. Gravity and lightness, a flow from the rough to the refinded: The antithetic materiality of industrial steel and knitting wool. The austere mechanism of the engine and the bursting colour of the complex textile structure. Heavy steel welding versus layering and straining the delicate threads.

Trickling metal chips inside the steel bars recall the soft drizzle of rain. It is the sound of an electrostatic field which erraticly rotates around its axis. Until the moving shadows at the wall and the gently whispering steel unfurl a story. Like the one of the cat which was quiet until morning and at the crack of dawn is ready for the leap.

Text by Christiane Wohlrab