CROSSLIGHT

Exhibitionview CROSSLIGHT at Scotty Berlin 2023, with Charlotte Bastian, Benedikt Terwiel and Katinka Theis – CROSSLIGHT is a light that intersects the path of another light, illuminating what the first one leaves dark. It is meant to reveal a yet unlit perspective on a topic or an object and is indirectly shedding light onto something that can become a new source of knowledge. Katinka Theis, Benedikt Terwiel and Charlotte Bastian explore the transformation and perception of landscapes. Each individual approach can be understood as crosslightning its different aspects as much as the combination of the three positions is emphasizing differences in its comprehension. Light plays herein an essential role, both figuratively and literally.

The work of Katinka Theis is pursuing the power dynamics of architectural spaces as manifested in the monumentality of urban structures, sites, and their out-sized landscapes. Her objects and installations site at the intersection of sculpture and architecture and can be understood as sculptural works or visionary architectural models that refer to form-defining, super-ordinate constructs. Her installations develop within the specify of their exhibition context, considering the formal properties as much as more atmospheric effects and impressions. The installation „Nachtmodus“ made for the exhibition Crosslight combines several hand-bent neon tubes with an concrete landscape model. Installed under the exhibition space’s ceiling the transparent gas filled tubes form an energetic ensemble that reveals the blue color spectrum of its filling when illuminated by light sources of its surrounding. The resulting atmosphere reminds of lightnings and weather phenomena, but changes if seen in correspondence to the landscape model displayed below. On its surface defined by topographical contour lines the model displays an architecture of curved concrete rods, which relate in shape and arrangement to the light sources above and raise question of their interdependency and the origin of its formation history.