SEBASTIAN WICKEROTH
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SEBASTIAN WICKEROTH
Vanishing Point,
SEP 4th - OCT 16th, 2021
Online exhibition of Sebastian Wickeroth for his solo show : Vanishing Point
Online
Sep 4th, 2021 – Oct 16th, 2021
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Sebastian Wickeroth
In linear perspective, a vanishing point is an imaginary point designed to help the artist in the making of their artworks. In Sebastian Wickeroth’s work, this notion takes on a whole new meaning and becomes a metaphor for the shifts of spacial concepts based on cultural skills and the human perception apparatus.
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In the exhibition “Vanishing Point”, Sebastian Wickeroth chooses to explore and connect the concepts of creation and depiction of space through a selection of three series of works. By combining elements of painting, sculpture and architecture with experiments on colors, shapes and media, Wickeroth reengages a dialogue with the traditions of Minimal Art and geometric abstraction by adding a new temporality and contemporary inspirations related to design and industry.
The shiny and monochromatic surfaces, made of synthetic resin varnish, stretch together with the painting which seems to free itself from the canvas or be forcefully pulled out of it. Is it the consequence of a destructive yet controlled gesture of the artist? Or is it a distortion determined by the materiality of the artwork itself?
In any case, this series comes from the idea that beauty and perfection can also emerge from the shapeless and the chaotic.
In the matter/constant series, shown for the first time in an eponym exhibition held in 2018, Sebastian Wickeroth explores the natural mutation process by mixing photographs taken in Iceland,China and the Alps with spray paint on glass. The blue-colored filter created by pigments sprayed directly on the glass transforms and gives life to the landscape that was frozen in the moment. The nuances then reveal certain elements of the photographic composition and veil some others, blurring the line between the photograph, the added color and the actual space between them.
A space of the gallery was also dedicated to a video presentation of the Raw Feels photographic series, only shown once before at the Multimedia Art Museum of Moscow in 2019. This photographic series, made with a smartphone throughout the subway stations of Moscow and St-Petersburgh, questions the limits of our visual perception and the veracity of our reality.
The ambition of this project was to focus the camera angle on the neon lights on the ceiling, with the adjustments made in terms of brightness and exposition bringing all the other elements of the image into darkness. Therefore, the camera proves the capacity of the human brain to compensate and even craft our perception of space, thus creating its own reality and perspectives. Through this exhibition, the artist leads the viewer to a wider and augmented encounter with their own physical self and the founding principles of their individual experience of the world.
"With a certain brutalism, Wickeroth attacks the formalistic principles of the art of the 20th century. His works represent an ideological critical questioning of traditional aesthetic positions as he confronts striving for order and clarity always with its contra position."
Tobias Hoffman
Sebastian Wickeroth
Born in 1977, Sebastian Wickeroth currently lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany. He studied at the Kunstakademie Münster, at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts of Geneva, and at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. He recently became a professor at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Dortmund and the Peter Behrens School of Arts in Düsseldorf.