Zwingende Leichtigkeit I – IV

by Martina von Meyenburg

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Materials

Mixed media (bird cages, leather strap, chain); different measurements

Dating

2012

About the artwork

Though sculpture and installation lie at the core of my practice I continue to expand my visual world through different media such as works on paper, photography, ceramic or “word-play” in form of work titles or word constructions. The histories of found objects and materials form the basis of my sculptural investigations. As a collector and curator of “traces”, the visceral and associative evidence of the previous lives of things, I am interested in how particular material combinations and modes of display can alter our relationship to the “data” presented. This includes experimenting with opposing characteristics, setting them in direct confrontation and playing with materials’ symbolisms. My interest throughout is to push on the surreal as well as femininefeminist aspects of my work and to play with and between the subconsciousintuitive and the conscious-rationale side of “things”.

About the artist

Martina von Meyenburg studied at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. She has exhibited in London, Milan, Berlin and in Switzerland. Her objects, which are made from arranged finds, take the viewer on a journey through time. The artist confronts us with the simultaneousness of past, present and future and thereby challenges the linearity of chronological perception.

Her work relates to Marcel Proust’s book ‘Du côté de chez Swann’, in which Proust describes how objects from the past might tell a story and trigger certain memories. Von Meyenburg skillfully implements this principle and plays with it. The viewer shall be motivated to relate to his own stories, make his own connotations and to consciously perceive and build upon past memories.