Angelika J. Trojnarski

'Observation of Nature'

Solo exhibition at Galerie Tanja Wagner, catalogue
by Thomas W. Kuhn
June 2011

Hybrid creatures populate the new paintings by Angelika Trojnarski. They are architectures of movement, which are prominently staged
in exterior and interior spaces. Mounted on stilts, it is uncertain as to whether or not they are being built or demolished. There is something unfinished and incomplete about these vehicles, which should otherwise exemplify the three major spheres of modern human action: land, water and air.

Missing its tires, an elevated tractor (Schwarz) [Engl. Black] looks heavy enough to collapse its seemingly fragile, roughly hewn support. Its presence evokes a powerful animal that might release its energy
at any time, like a frenzied rhinoceros in a zoo. A ship (Rot) [Engl. Red] appears to be resting in the dry dock of a boatyard. Planks of wood or another flexible material form an exoskeleton that partly covers the ship’s metallic-like hull. They seem to bind the vessel like a corset, stabilizing below the points from which above, the superstructures dissipate into the fog or beneath camouflaging paint. The super- structures themselves are not so much those of a freighter than of a war ship. An inadequate number of stilts beneath the bow suggest an instability that stands in contrast to the ship’s massively constructed body, powerful like that of a whale.

Migration and Weiß (Wolpertinger) [Engl. White (Wolpertinger)] are hybrid creatures. Migration depicts a wooden construction, reminiscent of a shantytown shack, atop a boat. Weiß (Wolpertinger) looks like a double-decker bus that has been merged with a hut.
While the boat threatens to capsize with its daring addition, the bus seems to be successful in its new state, transformed into an improvised living quarters. The painting Zeppelin leaves open to question whether or not its gondola has yet to be attached to the somewhat asymmetrical, cylindrical body hovering in the air, or if this has torn off and plummeted to the ground. In both variations, the majestic effect achieved by the deliberate gliding seems fitting to the floating architecture. An airplane, on the other hand, such as the one depicted in Fahl, seems like a projectile waiting to be launched at its target.

In dystopian science fiction films, Trojnarski’s vehicles could serve as transportation; in their performance on the stage of the painting, their effect is unequivocally symbolic. Generally free from a narrative or other ornamental context, they are like an emblem, an allegory for an idea that has yet to be discovered. The painting series Serosa follows this emblematic concept in its title. The Tunica serosa, or serous membrane, lines the chest and stomach region as well as the heart, ensuring the free movement of the organs and other functional body parts. Here, rooms that also seem to be in the process of deterioration are furnished with more or less mobile objects. The metaphorical transfer of medical terminology to the room interior belongs to a visual logic with which Angelika Trojnarski opens up a deeper semantic level beyond that of painting and of objects. A brief historical overview might help elucidate this.

Even ancient rhetoric was familiar with the possibility of revealing an issue or an idea through a different thing or person. Until well into the 18th century, allegory, a particular form of metaphor, was an integral part of general education. Today we are versed only in the remains
of this complex cultural system. The allegory of justice, with its bound eyes, balance scales and sword, counts among the few represen- tations that can still be comprehended by a greater number of people.

German texts

With early Christianity, the pre-Christian symbols that could be translated into allegories were revived. One of their most significant and longstanding sources is the prophetic Book of Revelation of
St. John the Divine from the first or second century AD. Among the uncanniest figures of this scripture about the end of the world are its harbingers, the Four Horsemen. The first horseman is associated with the color white and signals the war of – what is for him – conquest. Throughout the centuries, this horseman in particular has been contradictorily interpreted, as opposed to the three other horsemen, who stand exclusively for the misfortune that overcomes mankind.
The color red of the second horseman represents the blood that is shed in the wars between men; the black of the third horseman points to famine and need while the fourth pale horseman evokes death.

Interestingly, in the transition from Late Antiquity to the early Middle Ages, there was an Irish natural philosopher who undertook great efforts to explain the wonders and visions of this Holy Scripture according to objective scientific criteria. Augustinus Hibernicus completed De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae [Engl. On the Miraculous Things in Sacred Scripture] around the year 655, and holds a unique place in history for his rationality that was exceptional for the times.
In his treatise he also addresses various natural catastrophes
that had an impact on human existence.

Along the further course of history, these natural forces have been accompanied by human devices, ranging from the early, comparably primitive machines such as water mills, to the steam engine and then atomic energy.

Angelika Trojnarski refers to such technological and civilizing achievements as testimonies to a “megalomaniacal hubris”.
That her own pictures have been abandoned by mankind is an
implicit nod to the potentially ultimate danger of self-annihilation. Passive decline and active deconstruction are exemplified by the variable and the ephemeral in her painting, sculpture, and more recently, photography.

The transitory aspect of these processes is not restricted to the motifs alone. True, the paint is peeling, buildings are missing their stairs, walls and constructions deteriorate. But also in the painting itself, contours and surfaces dissolve, sketchlike, into the abstract. In this one may also see a positive commitment to painting itself, whose contents are conveyed not only intellectually, but also palpably.
The experience of the sublime, which in German is translated with
the word Erhabene, captures this sensual dimension that reaches beyond the beautiful with an amalgamation of awe and fright.

The artist has developed a personal repertoire of motifs and themes that she integrates in a kind of an alternate allegorical syntax. Uniting the concept of allegory with the thoughts of Augustinus Hibernicus, one can also derive from her signs of the real a higher, possibly visionary, meaning. A critical tendency cannot be denied here, yet her painting does not entirely succumb to pessimism. New opportunities for action and biotopes grow from things in decay. Literally as well as figuratively, the debris can become the building material for new modes of transport and habitats, and the fright can be followed by an awakening.

'White Elephant'

by Prof. Dr. Guido Reuter
Academy of Arts Düsseldorf
January 2009

The picture White Elephant shows a ship, whose hull and
other superstructures, crowned with a flag, protrude
skeleton-like in the artwork's facture. The wreckage is
supported by vertical and diagonal piles whose unsys-
tematic and almost chaotic arrangement demonstrates a
pathetic stability. The entire formation of the stranded ship -
including the useless supporting piles on land - testifies to
the inevitable process of decay and decline.

What does the title White Elephant mean in terms of what
is visible in the painting, as nothing is apparently remini-
scent of an elephant, especially a white one?
To this day in Thailand white elephants are held to
be sacred animals, are symbols of power, not to be used for
work, and need a lot of care. Thus they are a considerable
financial burden to their owners. In the past, white
elephants were even presented to the king’s enemies as
gifts, so they would suffer heavy financial losses, or even
total ruin.
This is what the expression “white elephant” refers to in the
English language. It describes a valuable possession that is
useless, makes more work than it’s worth, and is simply a
burden. The idiom “white elephant” also exists with
reference to development policy. In this context “white
elephants” are objects, which are expensive, cause social
and ecological damage, and bring few benefits
(e.g. controversial building projects like dams).

Like White Elephant, all the other paintings by Angelika J.
Trojnarski engage with human failure in a symbolic way
through stranded, broken, useless, decaying objects.
Despite technical protheses, decline and decay cannot be
stopped.
Progress to one person may be lethal danger to another.

Why does the viewer not immediately turn away from the
destroyed - terrible and sometimes even ugly - objects?
What is it that, on the contrary, produces a maelstrom, and
compels the viewer to look repeatedly and intensely at
these paintings?

For me, it is the special something that the French
eighteenth-century philosopher, art historian, and writer
Denis Diderot described - for the first time in art history -
about Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin's painting The Ray:
It is the “peinture”, the special painting technique,
the skill of Chardin, which in an inexplicable, even magical
way transforms the ugly, ghastly ray into a thing of beauty
and worthy of contemplation. Chardin’s “peinture” spins this
object into the painting's coherence so that the viewer
does not shy away from it in disgust, but stares at it in
fascination.

Angelika J. Trojnarski's paintings also possess this quality
in their own individual way. Her masterly art of painting, the
manifold handling of the paint's materiality, the tones and
moods of the colours generated, bring forth a structured
colour tone weaving her motifs into a fascinating oneness:
this is what holds back the viewer from fleeing, and
relentlessly drives the gaze back to the motifs.

The paintings' surfaces lay open their processual creation,
exhibiting “tears” and “wounds” arising from the powerful
painting technique and a variety of interventions in the
paint's materiality. Here the artist develops the pictorial
character of her subjects - a vital factor in why the pain-
tings are such self-contained, consummate works of art.