Interval – McLuhan

On the occasion of the exhibition BAUKUNST #2 (May 2023 – February 2024) in the Borchardt Gallery, Various & Gould have put a long-cherished plan into practice and worked with new materials. The approach: to create a symbiosis of art and function in which a work of art also improves the room acoustics. Recycled PET felt and wood wool were used for the modular wall collage in the gallery. The latter is commonly known as “sauerkraut board”. It can absorb noise and is used to line many a functional building, but has never looked particularly good. Yet there are so many exciting things that can be done with this material.

The exhibition series BAUKUNST, takes a look at artists who use architectural set pieces in their work and alienate them to the point of irritation, with subtle lightness and an occasional wink. Eight artists and eight positions illustrate the opportunities and possibilities that arise when planning and designing in a timely dialog between art and architecture.

The exhibition was curated by Jan Kage and Peter Borchardt. Participating artists: Clemens Behr, Anina Brisolla, Julia Eichler, Jay Gard, Katharine Harvey, Stohead, Trak Wendisch, Various & Gould

A joint exhibition with the architecture firm BAID as part of the Hamburg Architecture Summer 2023

The work is inspired by the following quote by the communications theorist Marshall McLuhan:

“Everybody has become porous. The light and the message go right through us. […] When you’re on the telephone or on radio or on TV, you don’t have a physical body – you’re just an image on the air. When you don’t have a physical body, you’re a discarnate being. You have a very different relation to the world around you. And this, I think, has been one of the big effects of the electric age. It has deprived people really of their private identity.[…] 

Everybody tends to merge his identity with other people at the speed of light. It’s called being mass man. […]”

Quote Marshall McLuhan (in conversation with Mike McManus, 1977)