Line Lyhne's wall-mounted mosaics glimmer with enigmatic appeal; in front of them, creatures made of stone and metal settle into the space. Drawn from George Perec’s essays Species of Spaces and Other Pieces (1973, French original: Espèces d’espaces), the exhibition’s title Spaces and Species not only mirrors Perec’s musings but refers to an expansion of (spatial) perspectives, localizations, categorizations and designations.
The sculptural objects, made of hand carved marble and forged iron, intentionally reveal their production process, such as the unsmoothed imprint of the chisel in the stone, and simultaneously mark their very moment of becoming. As if belonging to an extraneous species, the sculptures emerge between the viewer and the wall works. In combining traditional, archaic mosaic techniques with globally mass-produced, modern decorative tiles, the fragmented surfaces of the mosaics allow for one’s gaze to be lost in the detail. Upon stepping back and gaining a bit of distance, the individual pixels disclose the grander composition. The reflective surfaces are reminiscent of mirrored high-rise façades. Flickering landscapes are brought to mind, or, as if zoomed in through an open window, interiors and private settings unfold in shifted, dislodged perspectives. Formally referring to the genre of landscape painting, the extreme horizontal formats enter into dialogue with the vertical works, which lance abstract (interior) spaces.
The works employ various art historical references and thus formally resist a clear classification. In her first institutional solo exhibition, the artist specifically addresses the contextual space-time coordinates of the Kunstverein: a contemporary exhibition venue located in an old 19th-century city villa, which elicits historical references to spaces that were traditionally associated with plaisir, leisure and handicraft. The exhibition deploys an interaction of historical and present time through the associated use of the spaces, and a simultaneous intertwining of the interior and exterior.
Line Lyhne scrutinizes the boundaries between fine and applied art by questioning the tension between art object and handicraft, functional furniture, or decorative home interior. Through their juxtaposition in a value-free, nonhierarchical, and timeless manner, the seemingly familiar dissolves into the ether.
Line Lyhne (*1991, Aarhus, DK) studies at Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, in the class of Tobias Rehberger since 2019. Recent exhibitions include group shows in Hamburg, Oslo, Paris, Salzburg, Vienna, Frankfurt am Main, and in 2019 the group show LASH 23 at Nassauischer Kunstverein.
