STOCKER – PANE
Form Follows Vision
Alberta Pane gallery is proud to present the second solo show of the Italo- Austrian artist Esther Stocker. For her first exhibition at the gallery, she completely occupied the space with a big installation of black tape, appearing as a three-dimensional projection of her paintings. This » geometrical railing « , interrupted by cuts, broke the rhythm and the geometrical order of the gallery, and generated a new perception of the space. The gallery itself became a work among the works. For this second solo show, the artist presents a series of works that have never been exhibited before : the models of her museum installations and her big format works realised in situ. These preliminary works in the realization of the projects in the urban space as well as in museums show us how from a shape, from a set of volumes, a variation of tone, color, rhythm, we manage to activate a process of changing perception and vision: Form Follows Vision. As she describes it concerning the permanent installation recently realized in Metz for the Mazelle parking in front of the Pompidou Center: » The presence of a shape, a sign can be also important and powerful as the absence of shape. The weft demonstrates that a structure is always something else than the sum of the parts. The ‘imaginary’ character of the motive has to awake the curiosity of the beholder ».
As an heir to historical art movements such as Geometric abstraction, Gruppo T and 1960s’ Op art, Esther Stocker continues the research in vision and perception of space in a social and contemporary approach, also being influenced by new technologies. The creation of her pieces is inseparably connected to a highly elaborated mathematical discourse, an essential part of her artistic method. The artist’s reflexion is focused on the question: “How is a perfect system imperfect in reality?” Her geometric structures are based upon eternally self-repeating modules that create a seemingly ordered visual rhythm, to which the artist adds aberrations in order to generate an adjacent but new rhythm. This introduction of deviation in the optical balance, similar to 16th century’s mannerist architectural approach, creates surprise and emotion through the purposeful disruption of order and plane dimension.
Born at Schlanders, Italy in 1974, Esther Stocker has studied at the Fine Art Academies of Vienna and Brera-Milan, as well as at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. She regularly exhibits in museums and art centres throughout Europe (Germany, Italy, France,..) and the US. Among others her work has been shown at the South London Gallery (« Beyond these Walls ») in 2009, at CCNOA of Brussels (« Abstract Thought is a warm puppy ») and at the Museum of Modern Art of the Ludwig foundation in Vienne (« geometrisch betrachtet ») in 2008, at the Galerie im Taxispalast of Innsbruck in 2006 and at AR/GE Kunstgalerie Museum of Bolzano in 2004. In 2011 Esther Stocker presents her solo show « Destino Comune » at MACRO in Rome, she also takes part in the exhibitions « Fu!nf Räume » of the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York and « Abstraction/Quotidien » and « Abstraction/Modernité » of CAC Passerelle at Brest. In 2012 Tracing the Grid. The Grid in Art after 1945, Kunstmuseum, Stuttgart,Allemagne, Mind the System Find the Gap, Z33- House for Contemporary Art, Hasselt, Belgique.