Texts
- > Lóránd Hegyi, Musée d´Art Moderne Saint Etienne 2016
Mechanisms of inwardness - > Beate Reifenscheid, Museum Ludwig Koblenz 2016
Slow motion – Motor movement in the work of Anja Luithle - > Alexander Tolnay 2016
The drawings of Anja Luithle - > Werner Meyer, Kunsthalle Göppingen 2016
Is anybody there? – Yes, no, nobody’s there! - > Anna-Maria Ehrmann-Schindlbeck, Tuttlingen, 2014
The Twenty-Fifth Hour of the Day - > Alice Wilke, Kunsthalle Göppingen 2013
Between dust and stars - > Thomas Köllhofer
Kunsthalle Mannheim1998
The Personification of the Shell
Mechanisms of inwardness
There is a long tradition of cultural collaboration between the institutions
and artists of the Rhône-Alpes region and the German state of
Baden-Württemberg, a tradition that continuously evolves to manifest
new dynamics. The increasingly active role played by young artists and
representatives of the middle generation is particularly striking, and there
is a clear desire for a spontaneous exchange between the creative figures
of the two countries. The ever increasing presence of young artists in our
museum is one expression of the sincere engagement of Saint-Etienne
Métropole with the creative forces of the present.
The Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Saint-Etienne Métropole is
very excited about the young talents who are now imparting authentic,
contemporary and modern visions of the present age through their work.
The consistent and comprehensive presentation of young artists in our
museum programme, and the support provided through the international
exchange between representatives of the contemporary international art
scene, are two pillars of the museum’s policy.
The ‘Local Line’ series of exhibitions presents young artists from the Rhône-
Alpes region in our museum, and also attempts to show these exhibitions
abroad within the framework of an exchange programme between various
cities and institutions. Another of our museum’s exhibition series presents
established, middle-generation artists from Baden-Württemberg and
Piemont – i.e. artists from neighbouring regions – who are already wellknown
in their own countries, with the aim of allowing a new, contemporary,
open and pluralistic overall picture of artistic diversity to emerge,
which presents not only the programmes of the leading museums of the
major cities but also relevant, authentic, new representatives from across
the whole of the young art scene.
The Anja Luithle exhibition presents a small but representative, thoughtfully
chosen and intelligent selection of her work, which covers a range of
different media. The internal coherence of the outwardly different forms
and methods used in her work is particularly noteworthy, and these
ultimately express a sensitive, poetic, intellectually precise narrative, but
one that is also always concealed, latent and driven by emotion. The narrative
character of her work appears to have a fundamentally determining
influence on the world of meaning, even though these are not themes or
stories, let alone illustrations for stories. They are, rather, subtle evocations
that trigger latent feelings, long-forgotten memories that had never
completely disappeared, enigmatic experiences, as well as complex and
confusing mechanisms of human reactions and relationships.
Anja Luithle’s work is presented with an astonishing, even confusing precision,
in a perfect, mechanical structure in which the diverse elements
function as components of an efficiently constructed, precisely executed
machine. Despite this, the mechanical, apparently transparent, logical
structure contains something irrational, something jarring and disturbing
because no clear, credible function, no rational explanation of the connections
between reactions, movements and transformations is conveyed.
The more precise and mechanically perfect the sculptural structures are,
the more forcefully the apparent rationality and logic are contested.
The reasons behind the mechanisms are not explained to the viewer: we
are expected to reconstruct the hidden connections in our imaginations.
We are not given answers to questions concerning the significance of the
mechanical movements, the direction or aim of the changes, or the relationships
between the various elements. What we get is an emotionally tinged,
enigmatic allusion to something that is invisible but undeniably present.
At its core, Anja Luithle’s work is about developing an awareness of what
is intangible and invisible, yet also existentially present or substantial.
This humanly substantive element determines the mechanisms of
approaching and moving away, of affinities and antagonisms, without
exhibiting transparency in the activities and desires, without any logic
or calculability to the reactions. It is in exactly this space that we find
the enigmatic, which categorically delegitimises the apparently logical
mechanisms and causal explanations. And so the clear, precisely designed,
apparently rational mechanisms are understood as dangerous, as unpredictable,
as destructive – or self-destructive. Their highly sensual, almost
seductive and provocative appearance does not impart a sense of cheerfulness,
but rather an irksome, jarring, burdening, ambivalent mood.
Anja Luithle’s visual and sculptural work evokes a multifaceted, psychologically
and emotionally informed, poetic aura, an imaginary world in which
the diverse latent mechanisms of our human actions and reactions are
probed. The artist does not want to formulate any explanations or revelations
about our reactions and complex, often chaotic feelings, about our
affinities and inclinations, but she points towards the latent, unbounded,
impalpably rich and contradictory inner universe, whose forces and energies
determine the human mechanism. Her art is – simultaneously – intellectual,
precisely thought-out, quasi architectural and perfectionist, but also
highly sensual, emotional, open and contradictory, just like the human
mechanism, which is embodied in her precise, apparently logical and
transparent structures.
Lóránd Hegyi
Musée d´Art Moderne Saint-Etienne