Exhibition Text: Franka Hörnschemeyer, Conserva at Gallery Opdahl, Stavanger

In art and architecture, conservation refers to the extension of an object's lifespan. In physics, it is generally associated with the first law of thermodynamics; water cascading down a waterfall is in the process of discharging its potential energy onto the earth, a lightbulb translates electrical energy into heat and light. No matter the form, the total energy in a closed system remains conserved.

The floating objects in Franka Hörnschemeyer’s exhibition Conserva, are to a certain extent themselves part of a closed circulatory system: A rope anchored in loop to the walls of gallery Opdahl, suspends seven timeworn wooden boxes along its length. A filigreed, red-rusted lattice is lifted at an angle, its massive body on the verge of vaulting into the room. The objects are charged with the same energy used in hydropower, namely gravitational potential towards the earth. Energy that becomes tangible in a precarious balancing act that, like ballet-dancers frozen mid-flight, constantly threatens to collapse its weight onto the ground. 

Hörnschemeyer choreographs her spatial intervention through a 15-page instruction manual, complete with miniatures, exhaustive inventory lists, and instructions on how to tie knots for gallery technicians. While the manual accounts for every single angle and kilogram, one should not mistake its precision for a lack of sensibility, for the method by which Hörnschemeyer engages material is intimately conversational. What does Light like to wear?  and Does Light like being photographed? ZERO-artists Otto Piene and Günther Uecker ask in a 1960s poem. Hörnschemeyer engages in similar conversation with materials typically associated only with their function in structural engineering; formwork panels, the modular husks of concrete architecture, and sheetrock, generally used in the precipitous construction of walls and roofs. Hörnschemeyer’s method anticipates a burgeoning tendency in historiography to treat seemingly banal, every-day objects with the same seriousness as relics and works of art – an art history of things (stuff, junk) as cultural historian Peter Geimer has called it. The visitor walking through Conserva is invited to listen in on this conversation through the scuffs and scratches on the reused materials and the ever-changing constellations between object and space – but also to partake in it, for, as Hörnschemeyer herself asserts, 'I view myself as material as well.' If you gaze long enough into the sheetrock, the sheetrock gazes also into you, to paraphrase Nietzsche. ︎︎︎

Franka Hörnschemeyer:  Conserva (2022). Formwork Panels, Rope. Exhibition view, Gallery Opdahl, Stavanger.
Photo: Gallery Opdahl.

Franka Hörnschemeyer:  Conserva (2022). Formwork Panels, Rope. Exhibition view, Gallery Opdahl, Stavanger. 
Photo: Gallery Opdahl.

  The latter demonstrates that the circuit of Conserva is anything but closed, or at least extends much farther than that of the looped rope. Not only to the viewers, but also into the walls of the gallery. Here, the title of the show refers to another, less conspicuous process: the conservation of food. As is common in Stavanger, the building that houses gallery Opdahl was originally conceived as a factory for canned goods. And although the majestic chimney and smokehouse are long gone, some remnants of that former function is preserved in the unusually high ceilings and visible piping typical of these factory spaces. Opdahl and the artists that inhabit the space are, in a sense, hermit crabs reusing the old shell of another creature.

Hörnschemeyer enters into conversation also with the architecture, navigating and revealing the space’s idiosyncrasies and former identity, thus operating not only on a spatial, but on a temporal axis. In this light, Conserva conversational scope can be seen to extend far beyond the gallery, and into the streets of Stavanger, whose architectural identity was informed by the brick canneries built in late 19th- to mid-20th century, now largely invisible according to a 2017 report by the city's cultural heritage management. In this context invisible, as Hörnschermeyer reveals, simply means hidden behind a surface.

This coincides with an addendum to the first law of thermodynamics first made by Pierre Simon Laplace: In every closed system, not only the energy, but also information remains conserved. Hörnschemeyer’s empathic materialism allows us to decode the information contained in spaces and materials, but never claims to give complete ownership of it. Rather, it is up to the viewer to discover it in the oscillating relationship between themselves, the objects and the spaces they inhabit.