JUERGEN KRAUSE: JAPANESE CHISEL (OIRE NOMI), 2013 - 2015

September 12 - October 31, 2015. Bischoff Projects Frankfurt/M.

Bischoff Projects is pleased to present a solo exhibition of works by Juergen Krause. The daily act of preparation becomes the site of examination in Krause’s work, as the artist repeats the same movement, incision, or sharpening until the process itself gains quality. Krause continuously works on the same five bodies of work every day – Primer, Paper Cut Work, Tools, Pencils, and Hand Drawings. These five series emphasize processes of preparation and prolonged meditation in an age when the contemporary can be conflated with immediacy. Krause sharpens pencils until he cannot sharpen them anymore; he primes paper until he cannot prime it anymore – the resulting objects become metaphors for these intervals of time. Krause highlights our relationship to objects as they exist in time with his measured methods, turning his own attention into a material. By working with the disciplines of preparation, his work harnesses concentration in tangible forms.

The Japanese chisel (Oire Nomi), that is on view in the exhibition was sharpened, blunted, and re-sharpened – continually over the course of two years. Posed in juxtaposition to the chisel are two whetting stones, a Japanese grindstone (Nakato) and a Belgian Blue Whetstone, that through sharpening and surface-planing have been reduced to flat rectangular shapes. The three exhibits embody the process of repetition; a repetition resulting in whetting stones which were never used for sharpening and a chisel which was never used for crafting a sculpture, but becomes a sculpture itself. It is not the result with regard to its use that is important, it is rather the preparatory act itself that assumes the actual focus.



Krause’s work takes its cue from the Middle Ages, as he makes use of historical references ranging from early recipes for primer to Giotto’s circle, but most strongly looks toward the precise forms of 1960s minimalists and the labor-based rituals of the conceptual. Continuing in the stamina-based traditions of artists such as Hanne Darboven or On Kawara. Krause’s work reflects on the primary tools of art-making and therefore he marks, the very first gestures of the artist.

For all other information please contact the gallery at info@bischoffprojects.com or at +49 (0)178 924 32 50.