Hidden in the sprawling mass of seating arrangements that make up the monumental installation, THE HAPPY END OF FRANZ KAFKA’S AMERIKA by Martin Kippenberger, is a makeshift wardrobe or cabinet containing a single chair with what looks to be a map cube. This strange piece is in fact a work by the Artist Ulrich Strothjohann that Kippenberger purchased for his own collection. That it ended up being used by Kippenberger within his own installation might be incredibly problematic for many artists, but for Strothjohann it was the perfect place for the object to find itself. For something to be lost gives it the ability to transform into something else and it is this philosophy of negation, or what appears to be missing that is important in understanding Stothjohann’s work. He revels in the contradictions that such dilemmas produce and nowhere more has this been played out than in the blurring between his role as an artist and his role within the Atelier Kippenberger that has led him to be known as the “least well known artist.” Looking at Kippenberger I found Strothjohann.
For his first solo exhibition at MOTINTERNATIONAL, Strothjohann will be showing a new collection of aluminium made ‘trolleys’. These sculptures will be presented, as they might be in a design museum, on a raised base in the form of a U around three sides of the exhibition walls. Such a presentation could throw the viewer into a state of confusion as they try to attribute the possible uses to these exhibited objects that all have a certain familiarity yet deny definition.
Ulrich Strothjohann lives and works in Cologne and Berlin, Germany. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens (2007); Adamski Gallery, Aachen (2007); Neuer Aachener Kunstverein (2004), Aachen; M 29, Cologne (2003); kjubh Kunstverein, Cologne ( with Thomas Kalthoff, 2002) and Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne (1998). He has participated in numerous international group exhibitions including “ The New Domestic Landscape“, Kjubh, Cologne; Make Your Own Life, ICA, University of Philadelphia, USA and Not Quite 10 Years Without Martin Kippenberger, MOT, London ( all 2006); "Deep Action “, Kolbe Museum, Berlin (2005); "Gibt`s mich wirklich “, Museum K 21, Düsseldorf (2003); "Superman in bed ", Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund (2001) and "Deep-distance " , Kunsthalle Basel (2000).
