25/6/2008
Esther Stocker
Museum 52, London
What I don't know about space. Fascinated by "the vagueness of exact forms", Stocker's work oscillates between the exactitudes of formal minimalism and the ambiguities of abstraction. Her installations and associated paintings are abstract compositions in space; drawings animated in three dimensions by material, colour and form.
Museum 52 is delighted to present ‘What I don’t know about space’, Esther Stocker’s
debut solo exhibition in London.
Fascinated by “the vagueness of exact forms”, Stocker’s work oscillates between the
exactitudes of formal minimalism and the ambiguities of abstraction. She builds deviations,
optical breaks and hurdles, which simultaneously open-up and withhold the complex
systems inherent in her thoroughly architectural forms. By introducing these layered optical
breaks and interstices, Stocker “unworks” rigid structures and beliefs, finding new meaning
in the abstract.
Esther Stocker’s installations and associated paintings are abstract compositions in space;
drawings animated in three dimensions by material, colour and form. For this exhibition she
has created a site-specific installation and a series of painted works, all continuing her
investigations into the logics and rules inherent in depictions of space. Structured around
tension and contradiction, the generative core of Stocker’s works lies in making and
materiality, and is fueled by a desire to physically engage with the properties of those
materials. She has a sustained fascination with breaking down the precise, giving herself
over to decisions based on process and structure, looking to find a new type of freedom; a
freedom in the neutral and imprecise. The resultant environments induce a stillness,
sustained by an internal logic, yet the works ripple with latent, almost static activity; energy
harnessed in both the materials and fragmentation of the space and forms within it.
In her abstract paintings Stocker unravels the internal logic of seemingly rational structures,
using only grey, white and black. She projects several grid structures one on top of
another, creating visual interferences and diversions. The spaces between leave the eye
open to visualizing new ways of understanding. By exposing the inherent ambiguities of
seemingly regular patterns, Stocker effectively undermines the confidence in the rationality
of structures. Taking the methodologies of abstraction she questions painting’s ability to
envelope all dimensions. In this, Stocker gestures towards a total handling of the space,
using pictorial space as an experimental playing field.
For all their precision and careful balancing, Stocker’s installations and paintings do not so
much communicate precarious fragility as an obdurate, unsettling instability. They occupy a
metaphoric space between a focus and a blur, functional neutrality wherein one employs
the methodologies of abstraction and reduction to simultaneously open up and withhold
formal conceits, building an area of unclear perfection.
Esther Stocker (b.1974) has exhibited to much international acclaim, with recent solo and
group shows including MUMOK: Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna ’08, ‘Abstract Thought
is a Warm Puppy’, CCNOA Brussels '08, ART SHEFFIELD 08: ‘Yes, No, Other Options’,
Millennium Galleries, Sheffield ’08, Galerie Krobath Wimmer, '08, Galerie im Taxispalais,
Innsbruck ‘06, GALERIE. FOCUS WIEN, Kunstraum Innsbruck ’07, Centre d’Art de
Neuchatel (CAN), Switzerland’06 & Wandarbeit Nr. 12, MUMOKKA, (MUMOK), Vienna ’06.
Preview 26 June 2008 6 - 8 pm
Museum 52
52 Redchurch Street - London
Wednesday - Saturday 11am – 6pm