Steffen Bunte — Proving Things — Jeanrochdard Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: December 1, 2012 → January 8, 2013

Galerie Jeanrochdard is pleased present the first solo show in France by German artist Steffen Bunte.

The work proving things deals with the search for traces as a method. By creating various experimental setups in the form of images and objects, Steffen Bunte addresses the topic of exploring structure and shapes. The work also draws on rearrangement and restructuring of already existing objects and materials. His own photographs are extended by a selection of scientific artworks and collected things. These found objects gain a reorganized contextualization by a specific composition in the exhibition space, which allows visitors a different approach to material and object in the new setting.

An essential part of the work is mainly traveling as a strategy for gaining knowledge. With the investigation of the excavation of the future archaeological museum of Israel, the ’National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel’ in Jerusalem, Steffen Bunte‘s preoccupation with structure and form is transmitted in particular. The images of stones Site I (A), Site I (B) and Site II remind us of pictures shot by a scanning electron microscope. Here physical properties, such as sense of scale completely dissolve in the large-format photographs of the surfaces.

This bizarre but equally technical world of the macrocosm also builds the basis for the black pedestal piece 300µm, whose model is a greatly enlarged ice crystal. Here the borders between abstract macro photography and the images and forms that we know of, start to blur. Further this raises the question which aesthetic is inherent in the visualization of perception and knowledge.

There to shall establish the series Mars Science Laboratory, whose images are taken by the Mars rover Curiosity on the same-named mission, launched in 2012 by NASA. The work of the remote-controlled robot on the alien planet is analogous to the idea of curiosity and discovery.

From the context of collecting, archiving and displaying, the trolley Depot I, and the rack Depot II, alongside the small travel souvenirs (nasal spray, mobile phone, water bottle) are disposed of their original value and transferred to new situations. Hereby the resulting reorientation of the relationship between object and surroundings gains relevance. The revaluation and alienation through the marble detaches the trolley from its functionality. The trolley and rack itself symbolically represent depot and archive, whereas in the exhibition they display nothing more than themselves.

Steffen Bunte was born in 1987, he lives and works in Bielefeld (Germany). He received his Bachelor of Arts (Study of Photography) from Bielefeld University. Bunte has participated in several exhibitions in Europe including recent group shows at MARTa Museum (Hertford, Germany) on the occasion of Prix Leica 2011; Vallery (Barcelona, Spain); Westwerk (Hamburg, Germany).

This Project is supported by the Arts Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia