SUPPORTICO LOPEZ

Natalie Häusler’s installation Case Mod (from: Case Modification) exacts from the gallery space a field in which intimate and reciprocal encounters between audience and art practice are put to the test. Häusler compiles a situation, combining several elements derived from a simultaneity of studio and writing practice. Emerging forms, in this case, watercolor, sculpture and poetry, query whether they can uphold their fragilities and force of expression when exposed to the viewer and to each other. They articulate their mutuality when arranged in the exhibition space, producing crosscuts and intimacies, of visual, written and audio material, as well as of object and spectator/reader/listener. The audience becomes belated witness of the art practice as such, which the installation at once showcases and archives. Yet the present moment is highlighted, as the visitors leave their own marks on the piece, subtly shifting the color palette or destroying it altogether. Audio recordings of the voices of close friends, who are practicing artists and writers, reciting the poems, track down their intimate reception by an audience that is involved in both activities, production and reception. They capture the moment of surprise, when the poem was read for the first time. The intimacy of this contact is shared with the passing visitor, who must come close to the audio shelf, to be able to hear the individual reading. These shelves, each of which is cut and built from one sheet of stained glass, and customized for its assigned set of outmoded electronic equipment, serve as seductive support and hazardous repellant at the same time. The temporary construction of a space of this kind is part of Häusler’s inquiry of forms of intimacy, risk, close contact with the material, and inclusion to question modes of reception.

The book “Watercolors” documenting a one and a half year long correspondence in form of watercolors sent via email between Natalie Häusler and Californian artist David Horvitz is part of the exhibition. A book launch will be held on January 12th at Motto Berlin.

NATALIE HÄUSLER, born 1983 in Munich currently lives and works in Berlin. She received her MFA in 2011 from Bard College/Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, New York and a Diploma with honors and Meisterschueler degree from Braunschweig University of Art. A selection of recent exhibitions include: +6|2012 Shortlist Columbus Art Award, Kunsthalle Ravensburg, La Lucidezza, Reception, Berlin (2012), Als Morandi mit der Kinematographie liebäugelte, Supportico Lopez Berlin (2012), An Impossible Distance, Border, Mexico City. Her work has been shown at PS122 Gallery, New York, Soi Fischer Projects, Vancouver (hosted by Butcher Gallery, Toronto), Chelsea Art Museum, New York, Galerie Warhus Rittershaus, Cologne and Schnittraum/Lutz Becker, Cologne. In 2010/11 she received a one-year DAAD scholarship for New York and will be the holder of a grant for the Cité des Artes, Paris in 2013. She is a co-founder of the poetry press American Books (Natalie Häusler/ Ed Steck/ Brett Price).