Katinka Bock | Rauschen

In the exhibition Rauschen, which will be on view at the Kestner Gesellschaft from 6 March to 17 May 2020, the artist Katinka Bock (* 1976 in Frankfurt am Main) explores transitions and boundary areas of material, historical, social, and political spaces. In addition to 11 sculptures and installations made of natural materials such as ceramic, bronze, and wood, the central work in the exhibition, the monumental sculpture of the same name, deals with the historical site of the high-rise headquarters of the local newspaper Hannoverscher Anzeiger located next to the Kestner Gesellschaft and forms a new sculptural space out of it: the outer skin of the amorphous nine-meter-tall sculpture Rauschen (2019) consists of the original copper panels that covered the dome of this landmark of Hanover from 1928 to 2019. The newspaper becomes the main subject of the exhibition, due to the fact that the artist also turns the Hannoverscher Anzeiger high-rise and the newspaper itself into an exhibition space. The show, which was on view at the renowned exhibition venue Lafayette Anticipations in Paris last autumn, is now returning to its place of origin.

The parameters of temporality and space shape Katinka Bock’s artistic practice: “The most interesting part of a space is its edge, its boundary to another space.“ With these words, the artist describes her work process, in which she often connects exterior and interior and eliminates the separation between the exhibition venue and the production site. Her sculptures and installations can give the impression of fleetingness or seem like a monument that endures through the ages.

The shape of the sculpture Rauschen is the result of a technique that Katinka Bock often uses: she wraps objects in ceramic plates, which are then fired in an oven. The object burns, creating a cavity, the volume of which remains visible only through the ceramic. Rauschen is the enlargement of a sculpture created in this way. The historical copper panels lie like a skin around a body that no longer exists and form a new space. Due to its enormous size, the sculpture can never be perceived in its entirety, and thus it can evoke different associations from different angles. In combination with its title, the hollow body of the sculpture might look like the shell of a sea snail, for example, in which, in contrast to the widespread notion, one hears not the noise of the sea, but of oneself. Rauschen can also be read as a reference to the origin of the material: the media noise of non-stop news that surrounds us on a daily basis and the sound of offset printers that never stand still. The newspaper itself also acts like a membrane that connects us to the world on the one hand while on the other hand insulating us from it.

Katinka Bock lives and works in Paris. She was nominated for the renowned Prix Marcel Duchamp in 2019. Her works have been exhibited in numerous institutions in Germany and abroad, including the Kunstmuseum Winterthur (2018), the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg (2018), the Museo El Eco in Mexico City (2016), Henry Art Gallery in Seattle (2014), MAMCO in Geneva (2013), the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2012), and the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2010).

The exhibition project is being realized in cooperation with the Lafayette Anticipations Foundation in Paris.