Pedres i píxels • Stones and pixels Wolf Kahlen



The title in Catalan rudely just promises materials. Hot stuff rather than neutral words. Its an exhibition on the basics of art from the Stone Age till today. Trying to picture and proof the rather synthetical than analytical character of perception: One ‘single’ , ‘atomic’, ‘pixeled’, sensual fact added to second other or third, and all at the same time, shapes a third reality. Of course we know that synesthetic trick, but trap into it again and again, and often with pleasure.

In Wolf Kahlen’s NetWorks images or sounds, words of the classical poets in world languages or the European anthem dissolve by the clicking interactivity of the user. And return cyclecally in a second part of the piece, pixel by pixel, the same way they disappeared.
Life and death of images and sound compositions: The triptych of the reknowned piece (of the year 2000) called SELBST-LOS/Self-less , or WOLKEN-LOS and the recent GEDANKEN-LOS, and others like EUROPA ON THE FLY or VERZEIHUNG HERR VON GOETHE, SORRY MISTER JOYCE ...
In analogy then the single found and unchanged stones and ‘young rocks’ (a title of an 1969 video sculpture of Kahlen using a floating stone) , no more than atomic or pixeled parts of their environment, but joined together to groups of two or three, they may be looking like letters or archaic sculptures. May take over associations of any kind, though they are born out of chance and play, like the NetWorks.
Which are as site specific as the stone works, since they happen only at the site of the user at instant and never repeat, though they can be printed out, signed and numbered, as globally distributed parts of a piece, which knowbody owns, but many thousands so far have only details of.
The momentary associations, their potential of temporaily changes, this is the connection between the stones and the pixels. The exhibition is an homage to the stones of Formentera, therefore it starts there and travels across the Balearic Islands first. The catalogue in Catalan, Spanish, partly in English and German seems to promise further locations.
Peter P. Kajzar

Fundaciò SA NOSTRA Formentera / Baleares / Spanien
till may 27th 2006

Fundaciò SA NOSTRA Ibiza / Baleares / Spanien
june 7th - 28th 2006

Fundaciò SA NOSTRA Palma de Mallorca / Baleares / Spanien
january/february 2007

related: some notes about SELBST-LOS/Self-less at rhizome