The Perfect Circle

The spatial practice of a society secretes that society¹s space; it propounds and presupposes it, in a dialectical interaction; it produces it slowly and surely as it masters and appropriates it. (Henri Lefebvre)

A glassy lake. On the water a rowing boat, in it a smartly dressed young man. The boat reaches the stone-bordered water's edge. The man steps onto a trimmed lawn, walks along the minimalist edge of the canal. Serially recurring squares of trees, a circle of water, perspective lines stretch out before him.

At first glance, Giorgio Cappozzo¹s & Robert Gschwantner¹s joint video The Perfect Circle (2007) appears to have been shot in a utopian landscape. The cool atmosphere underlines the accurate tree lined geometry, green and water. Yet this space is real: It is in actual fact the Grand Canal in the Park of Versailles. André Le Notrê created this topography of an artificial nature. He thus anticipated a modern spatial design, as early as the 17th century, that later dominated European urban planning. The main, transverse and diagonal axes are connected by circular, semicircular, and star shaped spaces. During a stay in Paris, Gschwantner noticed the similitude of planned nature and city: "The fascinating thing about the Park of Versailles is its perspectives and dimensions. Although I stood amidst an artificially created natural landscape I was conscious of its urban spatial principles." 350 years later, the geometries of the crossed axes and the circle re-emerge: far from Europe, in the planning of a major project in China. Lingang New City, a drawing-board designed port city for 800,000 inhabitants also with a lake at its centre. The project of the architect Meinhard von Gerkan envisions a modern ideal city, where again water is the central feature.

Robert Gschwantner¹s solo exhibition 1662 in the Gitte Weise Gallery seizes upon these two places and their topographies in pictures and a video. His pictures layer the two historically and spatially distant places one upon the other. Gschwantner united their arrangements, abstracted through the planners¹ bird¹s eye perspective with the help of architectural models, beneath a texture of plastic tubes. Into this fine network, which stretches over the painted support, he fills glycerine and water from the Grand Canal. It is not only the layered spatial depiction but also this web of translucent plastic tubes that form the core of his works; incidence of light and viewing angle, difference between background and surface ­ all comprise the depth and versatility of his (picture-) planes.

Robert Gschwantner 1662 | Giorgio Capozzo & Robert Gschwantner, The Perfect Circle, Exhibition 29.02. - 29.03.2008, Tuesday to Saturday 11 6 | http://www.gitteweisegallery.com Gitte Weise Galerie Berlin, Tucholskystrasse 47 | 10117 Berlin | Tel +49 (0) 30 280 451 64 | Fax +49 (0) 30 308 746 88