ATELIER ANNE HOLTROP

MATERIAL GESTUREHOTEL INTERCONTINENTAL & 23 OTHERS

ATELIER ANNE HOLTROPassistants: Cristiana Lopes and Philipp Wündrich

cover: Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, HOTEL INTERCONTINENTAL PANEL 2, 1975

MATERIAL GESTUREHOTEL INTERCONTINENTAL & 23 OTHERS

Am schönsten ist das Gleichgewicht, kurz bevor’s zusammenbricht.Fischli and Weiss

This is the second semester in a series of atelier semesters that focuses on MATERIAL GESTURE as a way of making. Roland Barthes in his writings on the work of Cy Twombly, defines the term gesture as the surplus of an action. An action, he writes: “is transitive, it seeks only to provoke an object, a result.” Whereas the gesture is “the indeterminate and inexhaustible total of reasons, pulsions, indolences which surround the action with an ‘atmosphere’.” In the atelier we will explore the gestures of making in relation to a material, in order to produce an architecture that is solely focused on the relationship between the two, where the reality of the the work lays within the material, the form and the act of making. The architecture that results from this approach does not reference or represent something, neither is it an abstraction, but simply attempts to exist as a physical reality.     In this semester an artwork will be your departure point. We have selected 24 works with a strong material and gestural character, and each student will be assigned one of the artworks within this selection. The ambition is to research the work through its material aspects and the gestures of the artist and to produce an architecture for that work that is as specific as the work itself. As opposed to the white cube approach where the exhibition space is made as neutral as possible, you will research the possibility of making an architecture that is dedicated and specifically built for the artwork. The range of approaches could include reproducing the gestures of the artist on other materials, or applying different gestures to the material of the artwork, in order to find ways in which an architecture can be expressed that works best in its relationship with the artwork.  

Giulio Branca, from the previous semester MATERIAL GESTURE – CASTING AND CUTTING, glass, 2016

Guillaume Guisan, from the previous semester MATERIAL GESTURE – CASTING AND CUTTING, lost formwork, reinforced concrete, 2016

Mara Meerwein, from the previous semester MATERIAL GESTURE – CASTING AND CUTTING, palm leaf, 2016

Felix Zeitler, from the previous semester MATERIAL GESTURE – CASTING AND CUTTING,bitumen, 2016

REFERENCEGordon Matta Clark, OFFICE BAROQUE, Antwerp, 1976

REFERENCERyue Nishizawa & Rei Naito, TESHIMA ART MUSEUM, Teshima, 2010

REFERENCEAnselm Kiefer, from OVER YOUR CITIES GRASS WILL GROW, Barjac, 2010

1.Rachel Whiteread, UNTITLED (AIRBED II), 1992, polyurethane rubber

2.Katharina Grosse, ONE FLOOR UP MORE HIGHLY, 2010, acrylic on wall, floor, soil and polystyrene

6.Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, HOTEL INTERCONTINENTAL PANEL 1, 1975, mirror, reverse-glass painting, plaster on wood

18.Richard Serra, SPLASH PIECE: CASTING, 1969-70, lead

23.Carlos Irejalba, HIGH TIDES, 2013-16, geotechnical drilling

ATELIER ANNE HOLTROP