As a child, Stephan Crasneanscki spent several months a year visiting his grandfather in the Black Forest. Since then, he has never stopped exploring the darkened paths that Martin Heidegger calledHolzwege, or “timber tracks,” which lead to nowhere. Still today, Crasneanscki spends three months a year in this calm, cold forest, from which he sometimes returns with a few photographs. He revisits the same sites, exploring their passages and the ties between nature and myth. With large triptychs calling to mind the German Romantic era, he creates “breaths” in the landscape to help navigate the labyrinth. There’s no exit, no horizon, nowhere to go. We’re in the heart of the forest, in the heart of the self, in the clearing, seeing clearly.
Another ritual series by Crasneanscki exhibits that same heady clarity. A strange, thick, clarity. This series was inspired by Joseph Beuys and the accident that inspired Beuys’ own extraordinary research into raw materials. On March 16th, 1944, his plane was shot down over Crimea and the Tartar Lands. Like Beuys, we arrive by air. The rock is alone and silent. The shell of the airplane crumpling against the cliff cannot be heard, and it matters little. The fog deadens the sound. Some diptychs are vertical to accentuate their height. Others are spare, almost monochrome. The color is soundproof, almost uniformly white. The horizon is blocked out ahead, on the sides, and certainly behind. It’s so spare it becomes impenetrable, like the inside of a cloud.
Exhibitions
« Là où Naissent les Fantasmes »
Stephan Crasenanscki, Nicolas Delprat, Rachel Labastie, Laurent Pernot
From January 25th to February 25th, 2014
Galerie Odile Ouizeman
10/12 rue des Coutures Saint Gervais
75003 Paris
France
« ATMOSPHÈRE »
Samuel Bianchini, Stephan Crasneanscki, Ole Ukena
From February 1st to April 1st, 2014
Ilan engel gallery
77, rue des Archives
75003 Paris
FRANCE
tel: +33 1 42 77 43 38
Performance
Soundwalk Collective
Live – Ulysses Syndrome
7pm On February 12th, 2014
8pm – 10.30pm On February 19th, 26th, 2014
MUDAM Luxembourg
3, Park Drai Eechelen
L-1499 Luxembourg
http://www.ilanengelgallery.com
http://soundwalkcollective.com
