In summer 2016 Leonid Keller was invited to work and exhibit at a former sawmill in the small village of Neukirchen in Austria. Now a silent witness of generations of lumber production (1830-1970), with massive wooden beams and old machines, Leonid Keller set up a temporary studio at the sawmill and developed their works over a two months working period. The results were presented in the group exhibition Sägewerke.
#shapeofalake, 2016
installation view
#shapeofalake, 2016
varnished steel
2064 x 86 x 2mm
#shapeofalake, 2016
adhesive foil on postcard (15 x)
14,8 x 10,5 cm each
Die Eigenart
In ihrem Wesen
Uns alle
Die der Phantasie
Gebt uns Gedankenfreiheit, 2016
eleven collages
34 x 52 cm each (framed)
Gebt uns Gedankenfreiheit, 2016
folded book cover
ca 15 x 15 cm
installation view
On Solitude, 2016 (installation view)
three-part graphite drawing
210 x 70 cm
dictionairy page
#shapeofalake The multi-part work #shapeofalake explores the reproduction and perception of color gradients in landscapes while referencing the emergence of a digital color culture. The work combines a steel object, shaped after a nearby lake and coated in flip-flop automotive paint, with sixteen historical black-and-white postcards, over whose organic forms digitally exaggerated color gradients are applied; it shows different modes of landscape representation and reflects on the blurring between natural and digitally mediated perception.
The complex collages in Gebt uns Gedankenfreiheit (Give Us Freedom of Thought) alter the content of a 1952 book on Austria's glorified craftsmanship. Spreads of collaged imagery and reduced text alter the original narrative to poetry detached from its original propagandistic intent.
On Solitude is a graphite drawing of a fictional mountain range, presented as a triptych. It is dsplayed with a page from a Latin to German dictionary, which joins the words "Gebet" (prayer) and "Gebirge" (mountains). On Soitude explores the influence of geographical surroundings on the appreciation of spirituality.