SUSANNE THIEMANN

I encountered the work of Susanne Thiemann for the first time in a group exhibition of Munich artists at the “Haus der Kunst”. Her work fascinated me because Thiemann works on the thin line between the applied arts -handicraft- and sculpture. At the same time she does not shy away from heavy loaded themes such as femininity or domestication, but she does so in a highly personal way.
It struck me that I find echos in her work of leading feminist artists such as Eva Hesse, Lygia Clark or even Yayoi Kusama. A deep interest in the viewer’s reaction and participation is what Thiemann is after as well. Thiemann strive for a renewal of what it means “to have” a craft and at the same time “to deviate” from it.

Chris Dercon,
Director, Tate Modern, London

The Munich artists Susanne Thiemann and Annegret Hoch were lucky. ISCP made it possible for them to work up to six months in one of the old industrial buildings in Brooklyn, now converted into 26 studios. The ISCP, the International Studio & Curatorial Program, is an organization based in New York which is sponsored by cultural foundations from all over the world. Our applicants for a scholarship owe this opportunity to letters of recommendation which confirmed their qualifications. For Susanne Thiemann, for example, support came from Chris Dercon, Director of Haus der Kunst and Udo Brandhorst. Collectors and curators in Munich sponsored the sculptress. The artist Annegret Hoch was given the opportunity to work in the US by the Free State of Bavaria. Both artists have enjoyed all that the New York art scene has to offer. At the "Materials of the Art" in Queens, they rummaged around for material for the works they were creating locally. It was here that Thiemann found photos which had been discarded by the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum. The original photos of furniture from the 1960s and 1970s with their amorphous shapes inspired her to create a wall montage as a mental contrast to her woven sculptures. Those years in which she had slid into the drug scene left deep marks which are still reflected today in her sculptural creations, some of which she calls "collapsing furniture". The Martos Gallery in Chelsea arranged an exhibition for her in the spring. In Munich, she is represented by Gallery Bernd Klüser.

Annegret Hoch, appreciated for spatially-structuring painting, created a project with the dancer Patricia Weiss in New York. From the ornamental language of wallpaper patterns, she developed an arching line by painting around the corner on the wall, in the third dimension and thus continued into the space of the observer. In the ISCP’s exhibition room, the premiere of “Continuing” was held, a performance which the OSRAM Galley showed in a video last autumn as part of an exhibition of the artist’s work. In New York she also discovered her talent for collages with colored paper and transparent vinyl foil in neon colors on a black background. The outcome: appealing 20 x 14.5 cm cartons with abstract structures in which the silhouette of Manhattan can be detected. In Regensburg an exhibition by Annegret Hoch entitled “On the Way” will run until May 24 in E.ON Bayern’s administrative building at Heinkelstrasse 1. Opening hours: Friday, 3:00 - 8:00 p.m., Saturday – Sunday, 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Johanna Kerschner
www.und-kunstjournal.de

Zu den Skulpturen von Susanne Thiemann

Gegensätze ziehen sich an. Sagt man. Das Leichte und das Schwere. Ordnung und Chaos.
Heiterkeit und Ernst. Das Schöne und das Schreckliche. Das eine ohne das andere? Es ist
uninteressant. Spannungslos.

Die Skulpturen von Susanne Thiemann bestehen aus dünnen Plastikschläuchen in monochromen
Farben, bunten Elektrokabeln genauso wie dicken Streifen aus zerfetzten Autoreifen.
Fundsachen und neuwertige Restbestände von im Überﬂuss produzierten, schwer verrottbaren
Produkten. Material, das viele Assoziationen auslöst, weil wir fast täglich mit ihm umgehen
und es benutzen. Wir schätzen Kunststoff, weil er so schön geschmeidig und praktisch ist,
empﬁnden ihn dennoch oft als billig und minderwertig. Wir mögen zarte Farben wie rosa und
hellblau, weil sie eine kindliche, unschuldige Welt suggerieren. Wohl wissend, wie klebrig und
grausam die süße Welt sein kann.

Susanne Thiemann arbeitet mit einfachen, allgemein verfügbaren Materialien und benutzt eine
der ältesten Techniken der Menschheit – Flechten und Verknoten.
So entstehen aus Einzelsträngen Formen, deren Struktur von fester Flechthaut bis zum losen
Netzwerk von verschnittenen Autoreifen reicht – Bänder, die gefräßig den Raum durchziehen,
von der Decke hängen oder schlaff als Matte am Boden liegen.
Die einstigen Autoreifen lösen in Down und Going Down jetzt ganz andere Assoziationen aus.
Bizarr und tragikomisch. Gleichzeitig verdeutlichen sie, wie brüchig unser Leben, unsere Gesellschaft
ist und wie schnell wir bereit sind, Dinge zu entsorgen. Weil sie nicht mehr so funktionieren
wie es den Anforderungen entspricht. Weil wir keinen Platz haben für etwas, das verbraucht
ist.
In Arbeiten wie Group und Big Peddig zieht sich die rosa, hellblaue, schwarze oder beige
Flechthaut der Stelen wie ein Strumpf über ein Skelett aus Draht und Pappmasché oder Holz.
Das gleichmässige, harmonische Geﬂecht aus Plastikschläuchen ist durch Verbeulungen,
Einschnürungen und Ausstülpungen deformiert. Wir können die Skulpturen umkreisen, einkreisen
und kommen ihnen so aus der Perspektive der Künstlerin auf die Spur.
Durch kreisförmiges Umgehen und Flechten hat sie den Unterkonstruktionen eine Haut aus
feinen Linien verpasst. Die Verquetschungen geben den Plastiken Beweglichkeit, verleihen
ihnen ein Eigenleben. Seltsam zarte Wesen aus Kunststoff, die sich verzweifelt und komisch
in die Höhe recken oder schlaff in sich zusammensinken.
Susanne Thiemann spielt mit dem Starren und dem Fliessenden, dem in sich Geschlossenen
und dem Zerfetzten. Ihre Skulpturen beziehen sich auf einander und auch auf den Raum,
der sie umgibt. Mal stehen sie mittendrin, mal liegen sie als ﬂirrende, knallig farbige Softmachine
in einer Ecke oder baumeln als strumpfartige Schläuche von der Decke. Allein oder
in der Gruppe setzen sie das Prinzip der Gegensätzlichkeit um.
Anlehnung trifft auf Ablehnung – Chaos auf Ordnung – das Leichte auf das Schwere – das
Artiﬁzielle auf das Natürliche – Heiterkeit auf Ernst – das Schreckliche auf das Schöne.

Susanne Robbert

The Sculptures of Susanne Thiemann

Opposites always attract, that is a fact: bright and dark; order and disorder; happy and sad;
the beauty and the beast. Everything would be boring without its evil counterpart.

The sculptures of Susanne Thiemann are composed of thin monochrome plastic hoses, coloured
electric wires, and thick strips of shredded car tyres.
Pieces of lost property and remaining stocks of mass-produced, hardly decomposing products.
Materials that are triggering many connotations because they belong to our everyday
life and use. We like synthetic material because it is so smooth and convenient, even though
we often consider it as cheap and of inferior quality. We like soft colours like pink and light
blue because they give us the impression of childhood living in an innocent world, although
we all know how cruel this sweet world can be.

Susanne Thiemann works with simple materials that are generally available, and she uses
one of the oldest crafts in the world – the art of weaving and interlacing.
Thus she joins single cords to shapes ranging from solid braided skin to a loose network of
tyres cut into pieces – voracious ribbons, either hanging from the ceiling or lying slack on
the ﬂoor.
What was once a wheel tyre now causes totally different connotations in Down and Going
Down. Bizarre and tragicomic. Simultaneously, they show us how fragile our lives and our
society are and how quickly we dispose of things because they are not useful anymore and
because we have no room for things that are past their prime.
In works like Group and Big Peddig, the steles‘ pink, light blue, black, or beige braided skin
stretches like a stocking over a skeleton made of wire and papier mâché or wood. The steady,
harmonic weave of plastic hoses is deformed by dents, constrictions, and excrescences.
We can walk round the sculptures, surround them, thus seeing them from the artist‘s point of
view.
By working around and weaving in circles, she has given the sub-constructions a skin of
thin lines. The crimpling gives the sculptures mobility and life. Strange and tender creatures
made of plastic, stretching up in a desperate and peculiar way or collapsing limply.
Susanne Thiemann works with the rigid and ﬂoating, with the self-contained and the
tattered. Her sculptures relate to each other and to the room. Sometimes standing in the
middle of it, sometimes lying around in a corner as a shimmering, loudly coloured soft
machine, or dangling down from the ceiling like stockings. Whether alone or in a group, they
always give the impression that opposites attract: affection meets rejection – disorder meets
order – lightmeets strong – fake meets reality – cheeriness meets seriousness – beauty
meets the beast.

Susanne Robbert

press release >> click picture