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Saskia Wendland | solo show | 18 February to 17 March 2023 press
The circle has some prominence in Saskia Wendland's drawing. Not only as a recurring form, but also as a performative act of circling, as a physical, form-giving action. The series of red circles measuring the swing of her arms, which over the past 20 years has grown to 26 drawings, may stand for this. However, Wendland's circling and circling back to form and line by no means always ends up in a circle. And the obvious reference to the Ensō of Japanese caligraphy is as evident as somewhat misleading. Wendland's drawing is slow. It’s about grasping what she does, about the physical and visual knowledge of form and the formal aspects of her work. Which of course includes the act of drawing, her often enduring performance. With its slow choreography that rhymes with seriousness and work, Wendland’s drawing achieves an iconic conciseness that fixes and fixes us. From Walter Benjamin (quoting Franz Hessel) we know, "We only see what is looking at us." Wendland's drawings look at us. Not as a recording of some intense act of perrformativ drawing. What is looking at us and what we see is slow time condensed in the beat of work and life.
finissage 18 March from 6pm