OPENING WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 6 to 8 pm

We are extraordinarily pleased to present a solo show of new works by Constantin Luser (*1976, Graz) at Rotwand.

The central piece of the exhibition is Luser’s Conversationscollagen (Conversation Collages). These are based on illustrations from Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, which to this day is a synonym for encyclopedic knowledge in the German-speaking world. The lexicon made a crucial contribution to the democratization of knowledge, which for centuries had been accessible to only a select few. Essential to this knowledge transfer are the illustrations, which Constantin Luser has cut out from their original context and recombined to make his Conversationscollagen. The basis for his collages is the controversial eighth edition of Meyers Lexikon, which was produced from 1936 to 1942 and contains National Socialist ideas. Because of the war, only nine volumes of this edition, known for this reason as “Nazi Meyer” or as “Brown Meyer,” were completed, from A to Soxhlet. Today it is a collector’s item because the majority of copies were confiscated by the Allies after the war. In the Conversationscollagen uncanny crosses between man and machine meet before enigmatic fragments of landscape. The creations that arise are reminiscent of dubious experiments. Ostensibly scientific/objective illustrations from a reference work become irrational, in part fearsome mutations; seeming general truths are revealed to be ideologically tinted illusions.

In his latest work Das Rote Seil (The Red Rope), created in collaboration with Stefan Arztmann, Constantin Luser digitized the lexicon illustrations in an animated film, setting them in motion through modern technology and adding sound to them. In this way, they are further distanced from their original meaning.
The Conversationscollagen are augmented by complex paintings, produced on aluminum, that mimic spatial depth through four or five lines, while two delicate wire masks hanging from the ceiling represent real three-dimensionality with their silhouettes. The interior space of the gallery is finally dominated by Trommeliglu (Drum Igloo). An expansive sculpture that stimulates the viewer to interact with it, Trommeliglu relates back to older works by Luser that were made from musical instruments.