ISI KUNATH
The Archivist, Rearranging the World
27/10/2012 – 02/12/2012
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C&H Art Space is pleased to announce The Archivist, Rearranging the World, a solo exhibition by the Amsterdam-based artist Isi Kunath.
Human beings have a predisposition to collect: postcards, coins, stamps, artifacts, among other things, either for pleasure or simply for a representation of memories. The difference between an ordinary collector and an archivist is the ability not only to collect, but organize, preserve, and provide access to information determined to have long-term value. Such collection can be similar to the work of science questioning our place in the cosmos. Art can also give us a new perspective and perception of ourselves. Both come together in some sense in the notion of origin, because it questions our origins in different ways.
As a child I wanted to be an archeologist, says Isi Kunath, now I dig in my own and your memories. This exhibition presents the artist’s latest photo and sculpture works and represents a true expedition into Kunath’s preserved objects and memories. In her work, she tries to rearrange these objects and search for the relationship between them, memory and identity.
Isi Kunath’s work is characterized by fabric, string, steel, cassette-tape, china ink and appliqué. Nature images (trees, wood, animals) are also constant elements in her oeuvre and make up part of the artist’s origins and memories. In this show it’s also possible to see a series of photos which derive from Kunath’s research visits to ethnological museum and university collections and to explore the function of man and the reflection of emotions.
In the sculptures that Isi Kunath presents for this exhibition, she selects several objects that she has been collecting for many years. The starting point for these “diary” tables is a book, and from its title she creates a meticulous relation between the objects. Every object is subtly interlinked with everything else. In these associations, Kunath gives the objects more than just a tangible appearance: Sometimes I’m really fascinated by the beauty of a thing, a romantic moment.
Isi Kunath (1963) was born in Mainsche, Germany. She was raised in a small village surrounded by lakes, ponds, moors, and forests. She started her art studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg and continued at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Kunath moved to Amsterdam in 2003, where she now lives and works.