B-Part Exhibition

Lines and Layers

Antje Blumenstein



Lines and Layers

Antje Blumenstein

"Lines and Layers", the current solo exhibition of Berlin-based artist Antje Blumenstein (*1967) at "B-Part Exhibition" focuses on basic elements of abstract art: lines, surfaces, colors. At the same time, she reacts to the exhibition space - with simple means, but multi-layered effects: some of the works shown mirror, imitate and double architectural elements of the only supposedly neutral exhibition space, amplify its peculiarities. Quite reduced and yet with aplomb, the artist thus draws attention to what connects us with her works: our own perception.This already begins with the works that seem to be neutral to the space of the "B-Part Exhibition": "lines B06" and "lines B07", four approximately square Plexiglas plates, each placed in a row at a distance of a few centimeters, with partly different colors and discreetly milled lines. If one approaches the two differently fluorescent wall works, two statements by the artist become apparent: that the works also include the reflection of the viewer in the colored surfaces and that the more space is created, the closer one comes to the works. For Blumenstein, the former is not an annoying accessory, an antipuristic side effect, but a work assignment and welcome added value; the latter is detailed work. For more space does not necessarily mean larger space, but more multi-layered space - those who do not look at the works from the sides, from below (even from above, not to forget: from the corners) miss the reflection in the reflection, miss the interaction of the lines, miss the gradations of the color shadows and the effect of the radiation on the wall (blue mixing with green and orange with red), miss being able to see definable colors and indefinable boundaries of the work.The same applies to Blumenstein's work "lines B01", although here the Plexis glass plates are monochrome, namely fluorescent orange, but their dimensions, shapes and spatial positions vary considerably both compared to the other works and within the sculpture itself. Almost more importantly, here now the work takes on the conditions of the space, nestled against floor and wall, moreover hanging from the ceiling. Lines and layers, Lines and Layers enter here into an all the more varied interplay of perception.Finally, it is different and yet the same with the works that Blumenstein has designed especially for the exhibition space of the "B-Part Exhibition", especially for the exhibition: here, in addition to the work and the viewer, the concrete space, the site-specificity, is added as a third component to the play with the interplay. For "mirror 01," Blumenstein has doubled the six-panel folding door that separates the exhibition space from an adjacent room as a floor sculpture. Six Plexiglas panels, some in different colors, take up the door construction at a 90-degree angle as a formal image, reflecting it - depending on the position in the room - and also radiating colored light back at the door and into the room. Discreet, intangible and yet with character, the White Cube thus partially becomes a color box.If "mirror 01" is above all an examination of surface effects, then - despite the title - "two layers 01" seems to be an interrogation of the line: here Blumenstein takes a functional element of the room, a traverse, and doubles it in the work, tracing it with plexiglass elements fixed horizontally to the wall, helping them for the first time to directed attention, releasing them from their bashful utility. The fact that, depending on their position in the room, the "two layers 01" appear either as surfaces or as lines enables the viewer's perception to be doubly attentive.All the works shown are grounded in the paper work "lines P47", as a work from 2019 the oldest of those shown in the exhibition. With only seven folds on a sheet of paper - developed from a rule applied by Blumenstein herself in the past to make only five changes to the respective material - the artist produced a technically extremely reduced work. It not only materializes the exhibition title "Lines and Layers" in a minimalist variant, but also plays with light and shadow in a very special way as a folded drawing, a tilted image of two- and three-dimensional paperwork. In doing so, the artist creates as much space as possible with as few steps as necessary. Especially for this work applies what Antje Blumenstein, with a reference to Ad Reinhardt, declares to be a modus operandi of perception: the more reduced a work is, the more time one has to take to see it.


The B-Part Exhibition space accompanies the future development of the Urbane Mitte Am Gleisdreieck with artistic autonomy and thus at the same time enters into a dialogue with the overarching themes of the overall project - forms of New Work, Co-working, Culture and Sport - and creates synergies between artistic, cultural and social approaches.

The artistic director of the B-Part Exhibition is Rüdiger Lange
(loop - raum für aktuelle kunst).