BURGHARD

just on the level of presentation alone. But also with a view to the work’s material and design, in other words, the formats and arrangements as well as the context, addressee and objective, this project casts threads into very different direc- tions. Or refers – in varying ways – to the quartet that is composed of: institution, individual art practice, conceptuality and the actual (art) work. Glass panes, screw clamps, furniture, sheets of paper, porcelain panels, wide strips of cloth and textiles, dia and overhead projectors, beamers, hand-shaped lumps of clay, found industrially- produced bathroom mirrors, image and text ex- cerpts of various origins, post cards, info flyers, maps, texts, art magazines, books, typographi- cal samples, script animation or arrangements, modular and variably deployable table, shelf and display systems, sociologically-motivated research, a chair, land, architecture that is al- ready in place, specific building components and own studio windows. This list can’t be continued indefinitely. It’s quite obvious, how- ever, that the materials used by burghard – raw or processed, in art or typographical form – may be just as diverse as they are heteroge- neous; they may be as eccentric as they are con- ventional, and all the while, they may also be as art-typical as they are remote from art. It shouldn’t be difficult to directly recognize these works (or their specific mode of represen- tation as an ‘artwork’, ‘arrangement‘, ‘private or public intervention’ or ‘exhibition tableau’) as ‘art‘ based either on their location and referenc- ing context or occasion and intention. Beyond this, it is especially the diversely heterogeneous materials thus applied in form and content, lit- erally and metaphorically – but also specifically coded according to the occasion or context – that ensure coherence within the project. This is paradoxically achieved by letting these mate- rials serve as multifunctional design mediums and bearers of ideas. The step from mere material to its tangible form of artwork seems to be critical especially from a conceptional and from a formal perspective. As part of the solo exhibition ‘Steig’3 , found bath- room mirrors are shown flatly stacked, with the reflective surfaces facing down, entitled ‘raum’ (2009). These correspond to the overlapping il- luminated surfaces in the background that are cast by two overhead projectors. In ‘raum (Mirrors)’ (2009), the mirrors take on a life of their own, hanging suspended from the ceiling – installation-like – as a form-dysfunctional arrange- ment. The mirrors reflect nothing but the ceiling above. Yet for the viewer, they describe an invisible space within the space.4 The employed mirror-material thus corresponds, on the one hand, wholly to its inherent qualities. On the other hand, however, in its aspect as part of a site-specific design, it also gains an additional idea or reference level. The tension between a material’s concrete, tangible presence, or quality, and the very diverse referential and contextual lev- els that are triggered beyond it is what links burghard’s project with in situ installation practices of historical concept art. On the other hand, the formal design aspect, which is clearly evident in the individual works (as well as from their placement within the exhibition space), refers to the very topi- cal issue concerning the character of artistic work. This latter aspect becomes apparent not only due to the capri- ciousness of the materials selected, which after all encompass- es a vast range including raw materials (clay, fabric and paper connoting such characteristics as ‘raw’, ‘pure’, ‘untreated’ or ‘original’) and technical tools such as beamed text and typog- raphy animations. Indeed, it is practically carried to excess ow- ing the complex, obscure transformational and codification processes that burghard consigns conceptually to the ma- terial. This is the case, for example, when the statistical data of a room layout or architectonic volumes are translated into cus- tom-fit paper coverings or textile sheaths5 ; when time-based phenomena are transmitted into physical processes; when classification and record systems, which have been completely defunctionalized are merely ‘placed at disposal’ as material in and of itself. In short, when abstract modes of representation encounter their tangible, concrete manifestations. Thus, we would not be doing justice to burghard’s works if we were to read them solely based on content, i.e. as an up- dated reinterpretation of Robert Smithson’s site/non site con- cept; as a critical manifesto in regard to representational sys- tems in general; or as a kind of in situ ‘interventionist’ project.

BURGHARD

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