“Special Items (off the rack)

following the successful presentation
von der Stange “off the rack” in the beginning of this year at nbk
in Berlin, we look forward to the presentation of some Remaining- and
Special Items from this very special collection.
(very) favorable conditions and extraordinary
high quality of the pieces determine
the mood of this presentation.”

Manfred Pernice
von der stange (off the rack)
n.b.k. Berlin 2011

Curator: Marius Babias

For n.b.k. showroom the artist Manfred Pernice developed the “sculptural presentation” off the rack in situ as a walk-in work cycle. Ten new sculptures made of the same elements – archival materials, sculptural set pieces or parts of older works – are combined differently in each sculpture, so that the material is newly evaluated in its potential. Similar to the method of recycling Pernice thus combines different materials of different origin to a new aesthetic value and returns it in the context of art respectively reproduces them in this context. With these combinations of “variable building brick corpses” not only the diversity of artistic material in Pernice’s work is shown, but also the different research interests of the artist are visible in the fragments.

Anyone who works with sculpture today is, following Pernice, dealing with the “questions of the day before yesterday.” Today, under an expanded concept of sculpture, also photography, film, video and painting are regarded as components in sculpture/installation as well as a reflexive practice concerning the showroom and discourses beyond that. The simultaneous availability of materials, shapes, and (art) stories always leads back to classic sculptural questions: how is it built/formed, what decisions were taken? Manfred Pernice transfers these questions into the here and now of the exhibition at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein through his post-representational gestures: In the apparent repetition of material and form he overcomes his “own classical approach” and yet the actual act of the sculptor is at the forefront: by producing a three-dimensional space in the room, which Pernice always approaches site-specific. Again the genre is expanding: As much as the work cycle refers to the room, it still remains a “room within a room” and by being uncomplete an “unfinished work”, and thus open in its possibilities and ways of being looked at.