Katalogtext: Preface/Introduction
Preface to the catalogue of Volker Kühn's Art in Boxes, 2009
A sedulous paraphernalia collector and witty story-teller from the
bottom of his heart, Volker Kühn has devoted himself to the creation
of three-dimensional freeze-frames featuring small "findings" and
miniature figures for more than two decades now. Mixed media
assemblages altogether, his small-sized object scenes are both
matted and framed as pictures and arranged in boxes like miniature
stage sets or tableaux.
Made with ultimate manual skill and masterly precision, his mostly
surrealist and metaphorical cabinets are also unique in their humour
and imaginativeness. These "miniature worlds" being put on stage
like this, the underlying idea of Volker Kühn’s work-cycle turns out
to be the viewer’s amazement, while simultaneously showcasing the
essence of human curiosity itself.
The showcase scenes do not, as was usual with mid-eighteenth-
century peep boxes, render three-dimensional perspective views of
the outside world, but on the contrary, they bring into focus a close-
up view of the microcosm within the frame. The audience’s view
through the magnifying glass is rewarding: Their attention is drawn
to the "Small Things" which seem to grow to huge space-filling
dimensions within the boundaries of their containers. Volker Kühn
juxtaposes miniature images and abstractions of reality in surprising
compositions, always aiming at the viewer’s recognition of a common
interpersonal situation, line of thought, or feeling. Looking closer,
we can see behind the curtain the absurd and sometimes ludicrous
in it and may therefore suddenly find ourselves laughing but also
contemplating.
The scenes always describe or relate to interactions between two
or more symbolic agents, and their imagery, concentrating on the
essentials, is easily understood.
Caringly carved out with painstaking accuracy yet with a lightness
of touch that brooks no comparison, short stories emerge from these
subtly intertwined objects and picture elements. As a subheading,
sometimes as an explanation, "talking" work titles which on their part
interact with the symbolic contents of the scenes are appended to the
art in boxes. Here, proverbs and sayings as well as idioms, analogies,
paronomasias, or famous quotations hint at the deeper meaning
behind the obvious, and they also serve as a means to "personalize"
the individual object boxes.
As it is, this art in boxes ist "art to go": unique art collector’s items
from a collector’s hands, whose common denominator is their focusing
on the pure experience of the thing-in-itself which, entering a contra-
stive or even antithetical relationship to the symbolic Other, develops
a strong semantic relationship previously unperceived. Thus exploited
to their utmost potential, the showcase scenes always cut right to the
chase, they mostly hit the mark, and sometimes they may strike a
nerve.
But more than this: They’re fun. Now that’s for you to find out.]
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©2009 [geistes]:bits