The Call – Städelschule Graduates Show

The very moment you step into the foyer of the repurposed building, you’ll see works by Benja­min Tibe­rius Adler and Eric Powell. Adler, who studied law before his degree in fine art, has installed a figure-of-eight sculpture made of law books, through which a cycle of water flows. His work, “Down the Drain” thus alludes to the constant impermanence of these kinds of treatises, which have to be updated with every legislative period and change in the law.

A few meters further on in a passageway, we encounter the work “Follo­wing the Protocol” by Dmitry Tesel­kin. His installation consists of a layer of cardboard boxes playfully arranged to cover all the walls of the corridor as well as the doors to the toilets. Might this layer be a kind of protective device for the stone wall that stands behind it? Is it a metaphor that asks about our own human need for protection?

From the odd closed office door, meanwhile, sounds and noises emerge that arouse visitors’ curiosity. As we enter one of these rooms, we come across the sound installation “Binary Compo­si­tion for Two Cellos” by Donghoon Gang. The sounds of two cellos emanate from two small loudspeakers. These stringed instruments produce melodies that go from fast and rhythmical to slow and sluggish, from cheerful and harmonious to melancholy and discordant. The score for this polyphonic instrumental piece is mounted on a wall and structured in a circular system of lines that suggests an endless musical loop. In conversation with the artist, who studied music and philosophy before his degree in fine arts, we learn that the shape of a cello reminds him of a human silhouette, while its tones remind him of a human voice. “Allegro, vivace, largo” – these musical terms have been replaced by the artist with emotions such as “anxiety”, “sorrow”, or “love”. It is not only the tempo and the rhythm, but also the dissonant or harmonic intervals of the melodies that create different feelings and emotions. The cellos thus become representatives of individual humans, who react to each other through their voices and support, argue, and are reconciled in an ever-recurring cycle.

SOUND, SOUND, SOUND

At the end of the corridor, in an entirely darkened room, there is another sound installation – this time by Mahya Ketabchis. We hear undefined tones ranging from metallic, industrial, and instrumental sounds to nature-like noises, triggering a wide variety of associations. In “Study of a Search”, the focus is on the emotional and sensory experiences that are triggered in the listener by the sounds of the installation.

Discarded glass shower panels are arranged in modular stone blocks and fill part of the room. The logo of the Leonardo Hotel in Frankfurt am Main can be seen on the glass. They were left outside the hotel as it underwent renovation, and artist Nina Nadig salvaged them. Her work “Leonardo” thus reflects the boundaries between private and public property and questions the dictates of private ownership. The grid-like arrangement of the glass panels in the exhibition space reflects the rigid and repetitive architecture of the hotel, while the modular installation, which can be arranged and moved at will, creates a playful moment.

The hotel’s logo – the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci – symbolizes the image of the perfect male body and thus not only raises questions about body norms, but also about a person’s presence as an artist. The perfectly formed individual, drawn by the master of the Renaissance, calls their own artistic ability into question and shines a light on constant self-optimization, born of insecurity, as a human being and an artist.