heat of the moment

Felix Dennhardt and Clemens Tschurtschenthaler

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Finissage 

21.05.2021

18 - 21 h

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07.03.2021 - 21.05.2021

With their joint exhibition heat of the moment, Felix Dennhardt and Clemens Tschurtschenthaler explore the scope and depth of the quake, of a charged moment in which energy condenses immediately before an event.

From the standpoint of an objective observer, the two artists translate the moment into an objecthood that, from its origin, precedes thought in its being. Through partly performative acts, objects are created that remain as altered fragments of such a moment, describing our ongoing connection with these very moments. 

Similar to Timothy Morton's Hyperobjects, Clemens Tschurtschenthaler's artistic works condense the appearance of the energetic moment through simultaneously readable traces created at different points in time. They make it clear that the mere moment cannot be captured in its original manifestation in the present. Its complexity only emerges in an object-like quality in a final product that has been shaped and changed by the energy of the moment.

In a certain way, we are constantly in touch with moments of this kind. Whether it is that we dwell on such a moment in our memories or that we conjure up such a moment in the present through our behaviour. Felix Dennhardt describes this state in an absurd extension of the stovepipe, which winds in a seemingly endless loop between the heat of the stove and the flue of the fireplace. At the same time, the 80s song 'In the heat of the moment' by the band Asia, mixed with the crackling of a fire, resounds through the pipe condensed as a sound body. Through this auditory element, which sets the underlying starting point of the works of both artists, the works connect with each other and illuminate the heat of the moment in its temporal and spatial effect and expansion.