ARCHIVE I

Module

 

Elements that follow a strict logic yet an open system in all directions, multifarious; building blocks that coalesce into a whole only to remain in constant motion in its definitive state.

Natural constructs and artificial figures, with and against one another to the same degree.

Here a tuberous graft; there a tightly woven web, dissipating once again, curtsying to the wind, rooted both in the air and the earth, expanding in all directions, without borders.

Relentless.

Here funnel-shaped; there razor-thin layers, negating the surroundings and contrary to all nomenclature, fitted with scion-like weapons, resistant, cultivated, and running feral again – through and through a resistant practice.

 

 

ARCHIVES I, II, III, IV

Living Archives

 

Organic not only describes the formal language that Birgit Knoechl speaks. Organic, when not living, are also the archives that she draws from her work, the archives that she brings forth through her work, that she generates with her work – those archives presented in this book and compiled into a new archive.

Aspects of Growth.

They are constellations of knowledge, a visual knowledge, never-aging reservoirs of collective image consciousness, condensations and concentrations, which – however – always remain temporary, ephemeral, variable, adaptable, and contradictory.

Change, upheaval, and new beginnings are equally inscribed into the archives of Birgit Knoechl as are resorts to the familiar, preservation and conservation. Fleeting manifestations come and go, come and go.

Rhizomatic structures.

Occupy space.

The artist collects materials, forms, and contents; she mixes them, confounds them; she orders them according to her own points of view – according to the rhythm that the material, form, and content ask of her. Birgit Knoechl’s archives are collections, aggregations. They are condensed accumulations the artist employs to produce evermore new narratives by drawing from existing stories.

Birgit Knoechl tells of the world.

The artist reports on the elements that institute the world and likewise on the elements that are instituted by the world. Modules, systematically deployable to counter the system – a resistant practice. The artist tells of mixed forms that conflate the familiar into new categories, hybrids that stand for the aspect of connection and merge completely in the fusion.

She negotiates basic forms and their multifaceted aggregate states without insisting upon forms and states – for the reflection upon them is always nascent. Line_Shape. Birgit Knoechl makes interfaces visible; she constructs organically grown physical membranes, which contribute to the liveliness of her work – to her living archives – as phenomena of transition.

 

 

ARCHIVE II

Hybrid

 

Mixed forms that generate something new from the familiar; a culmination of common forms whose individual images begin to vibrate in their difference, apparently random and supposedly intentional; warming fusions and cooling combinations; astute alliances, expedient collectives, liaisons forged by an impulse; bundled, crossed, fused.

More than two souls in one chest.

Here a shadowing baldachin; there sharp-flowered, unevenly leafy and translucent, always subordinate to the firm tread of the walker, soft and velvety with all the more clearly contured architecture, multi-part, serial. Here in the moment of emergence, conceived in delicate growth; there in the full blossom of life, willing and expansive – harbored in the moment of connection.

 

 

ARCHIVE III

Line_Shape

 

Basic forms and aggregate states: basic forms that repeat, basic forms that vary; aggregate states that repeat, aggregate states that vary; bodies with corners, edges, and surfaces; entities of lines trying to disengage their limitations and surge into space.

Seeds of crystallization.

Kinetic energy, attraction and repulsion; biomorphous architecture and architectonic biology; layer for layer, condensed and alienated, one form leads to the other, one state pursues the other.

Growth.

Here radial, stalky, and needle-like; there grape or bud-like, bulbous, bulging, bushy. Here cylindrical, cubic, prismatic; there scaly, leafy, following the form of mica – actions in progress.

 

 

ARCHIVE IV

Interface

 

In-betweens that couldn’t be more filigree; membranes, permeable, impermeable, semi-permeable, and setting boundary surfaces in oscillation; intermediates separating one side from the other while correlating both with each other; obsolete user interfaces extracted from their context, user interfaces their control center lost, haven’t been discharged, and now live their own life.

Bridges, links, and connecting lines.

Here totally functional just a few minutes ago; there the roots have been pulled out, yet with no desire of ever sticking them back in. Here a predetermined breaking point; there close contact with continuously new prospects, open wounds and sutures – phenomena of permanent transition.

 

Text by Franz Thalmair

Translation: Peter Blakeney & Christine Schöffler

published in ASPECTS OF GROWTH – BIRGIT KNOECHL
VERLAG FÜR MODERNE KUNST
2015