Exhibition Record (Johnen). Johnen & Schöttle, Galerie für Architektur und Kunst, Köln, 1984–1986; Johnen & Schöttle, Köln, 1986–2008; Johnen Galerie, Berlin, 2004–2016, 2016
252 chrome pigment prints, 13 x 18 cm, 3 card display stands, 190 cm, Ø 50 cm
Photo © Andrea Rossetti, 2016

Floor, 2016
Plywood, concrete
150 m², Height: 16,5 cm
Photo © Andrea Rossetti, 2016

Exhibition Record (Johnen). Johnen & Schöttle, Galerie für Architektur und Kunst, Köln, 1984–1986; Johnen & Schöttle, Köln, 1986–2008; Johnen Galerie, Berlin, 2004–2016, 2016
252 chrome pigment prints, 13 x 18 cm, 3 card display stands, 190 cm, Ø 50 cm
Photo © Andrea Rossetti, 2016

Floor, 2016
Plywood, concrete
150 m², Height: 16,5 cm
Photo © Andrea Rossetti, 2016

Karin Sander

03.06.2016 – 08.07.2016
Solo Exhibition

Johnen Galerie, Berlin
Berlin, Germany

Karin Sander’s sculptural intervention Floor was firrst executed in New York, in 1991. At the time, art critic Gregory Volk wrote: “A new floor has been installed upon the gallery’s own floor and slightly elevated (...) The floor piece is a subtle disruption within the gallery. Quite close to the ground, it seems to float. It simultaneously invites the observer to walk upon it just like any other floor, while making the observer cautious.” Invited to reconsider their habitual expectations of a gallery visit, viewers will become sculptures themselves, walking on a giant plinth.

Documenting the thirty-two year history of Johnen Galerie, Sander has culled about 250 images from the gallery archive, each representing one past exhibition. Presented in ready-made stands, the set of images (13 x 18 cm) represents a record of all the gallery exhibitions, of all the artists, as well as the photographers who documented the exhibitions—and in some cases both.

Analogously to Sander’s first exhibition at Esther Schipper in 2012, which consisted of custom-made carpeting mirroring one room’s floor plan and the tipping-over of then freshly-restructured drywall elements throughout the other rooms, both works on display can be understood as analytical explorations of the workings of a gallery.

Another parallel could be drawn to Sander’s 2011 Kernbohrungen (Core Drilling) conceived on occasion of her solo exhibition at the N.B.K. in Berlin: for the duration of her exhibition, the Kunstverein’s office paper trash was dropped directly through ve holes drilled through the floor of the upper-floor administration into the otherwise empty exhibition spaces below, creating something akin to a sculptural portrait of the institution’s internal processes.

Visitors to Sander’s exhibition in the Johnen Galerie location will sense 253 exhibitions: one that exists here and now (but opens up a historical perspective on 25 years of her own practice), and near 252 that existed in the past–many of them in this very space–which has now become slightly elevated.

Represented works

Floor (Boden)
Exhibition Record (Johnen)