Shadow Swing
Shadow Swing, 2014/2015, moving light source, 30 m linear track system, drive and control with random changes of brightness, speed and direction, 10 x 40 x 15 m, DA, Kunsthaus Kloster Gravenhorst, Germany
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The shadows of the roof truss sweep through the 400-square-meter hall like oversized swings. The room winds up and unwinds again. By scanning its surfaces, its topographical events become apparent.
Shadow Swing
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Hinrich Gross’ work “Schattenschaukel” is a kinetic installation. It is spectacular, not so much because it occupies a large space with seemingly few means, but because it enables an aesthetic experience. In contemplation, the seeing, the image-forming and the sense-forming differentiate themselves without releasing themselves from their reciprocal relationship. Like the Op Art artists, Hinrich Gross refers to the conditions of seeing and the dyna- mics of its process.
Op Art developed in the continuance of the ideas of Russian Cons- tructivism, of the De Stijl movement and the Bauhaus.The interest of artists like Victor Vasarely, Jesús Rafael Soto or Yaacov Agam was directed to the active principle as much as the principles of inclusion and exclusion of visual perception. Many of the artists working with physical light today relate to perception as a co-creative and co-constituting process of every artwork. One of them, James Turrell, summarizes:“I like to use light as a mate- rial, but my medium is actually perception. I want you to sense yourself sensing—to see youself seeing.” Like others he emphasizes subjectivity a priori of perception and disbands the concept of an objective, static and describable artwork.
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Bettina Pelz