Dieter Lutsch
Trockenbau

June 21st – August 23rd, 2008

Entering the arena of make-believe. Dieter Lutsch deprives objects of their original meaning. Through alienation, he transfigures the significance of the material and reassigns purpose. Columns made by the sculptor consist of billowy foam. He designs fountains of perforated mattresses and cubes of airy styrofoam. Whenever he works with stone, it is used in connection with pastries or a colorfulness you wouldn’t expect in the chosen material. “Dry mortarless construction” (Trockenbau), a term taken from the building trade in its original denomination constitutes the limited possibilities of construction. In the context fabricated by Lutsch, it grapples with expectation, form and curiosity. At the same time it inverts the original meaning of this term as it leads toward an openness and full sensation of space.

“Trockenbau” is a sculpture of stacked wooden pallets. Going against any inhibition people might feel in museums, this sculpture has to be walked upon and touched by the visitor. In interacting with this work of art, the observer is invited to experience a different form of comprehension of space. Walking through the sculpture it is thereby transformed into an installation that reveals space. Lutsch’s installation starts to entice the observer from far away, outside the confined space of the gallery, far off the centre. The irresistible Red Carpet of Arte Povera invites the visitor to follow the path and climb this hybrid Tower of Babel inside the gallery. Dieter Lutsch’s staging is accompanied by sounds that reveal their origin only after pacing around his sculpture.

Another piece by the artist: “Maneki Nekos” is an Asian lucky charm. The almost ruthless “sentimentalization” of these mascots by Western culture, in the form of “Waving Kitties“ is again exaggerated by Lutsch. He bereaves them of their intended significance and places them in an utterly new context, a musical one. Arranged in a formation adjusted to result in optimal sound, maniac plastic kittens knock on piled up glasses.

Born in 1974 in Transylvania, Romania, Dieter Lutsch grew up in Stuttgart. From 2001 to 2006 he studied sculpture at Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee, graduating as Karin Sander’s master disciple. Jarmuschek+Partner now proudly presents Dieter Lutsch’s first solo show.