Isolation (Parkstück)

At the end of a corridor cut short by a wall, we come across a window that reveals the continuation of that corridor beyond the wall, flooded with natural elements and members of the public strolling calmly among trees and shrubs. This window onto another world – another world because it does not obey our physical rules, because we cannot grasp how these fragments of nature have been inserted into such an artificial and controlled space –awakens in us the desire to locate the entrance and move through it just like those other visitors.

However, the act of searching for the entrance, for the physical location of this mysterious place, can only lead to frustration and disorientation. We cannot find that space because it is, in fact, elsewhere.

The operation at the heart of Fabian Knecht’s installation, which engages in a dialogue about the post-natural, consists of constructing an artificial space – one that architecturally replicates the rooms of the art centre – around nature itself. In this case, the container encloses thirty-two square meters of Barcelona’s Horta Park, open to the public, and records the movement of visitors, which is then projected in a video behind that window within the exhibition space.

Credits

Artist: Fabian Knecht
Architecture: Sebastian Keller and Tobias Schmitt
Installation team: Èlia Bagó Flaquer, Marcus Kraushaar, Hernán Tonelli and Sara Torres López

Fabian Knecht

Fabian Knecht lives and works in Berlin. Born in Magdeburg in 1980, he studied at the Universität der Künste Berlin, the Institut für Raumexperimente, and the California Institute of the Arts. His works have been exhibited in international renowned institutions, including the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU) in Zagreb, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Imperial War Museum in London, the Kunsthalle Mannheim, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (MOCAK). He is a member of the Senegalese-Berlin-based collective Dry Ocean.

www.fabianknecht.de