Exhibition

H. N. Semjon
Product Sculptures • Kiosk (w.i.p.) • Structural Drawings


2/5 - 2/28/1999
Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst e.V. Trier
at the showroom Galerie Palais Walderdorff
at the Tuchfabrik/ TUFA
Wechselstr. 4-6, 54290 Trier
Phone 0651/66671
The exhibition of H. N. Semjon took place at the exhibition space Palais Walderdorff at the Tuchfabrik, TUFA, of the inviting Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst Trier e.V. (Association of Fine Arts Trier).

There have been on view two main groups of the artist: The "Product Sculptures" and the "Structural Drawings". Hightlight of the group of "Product Sculptures" was the installation "Kiosk (work in progress)".

On occasion of this show, Jan Maruhn has edited the monographical publication at the publishing house Vice Versa, Berlin.

The "Product Sculptures" are original product packages including their content being covered with bleached beeswax and being placed in a plexiglass box with a blue revolving pedestal. Five of this works were shown. The installation "Kiosk (w.i.p.)" marked the highlight of this working section. On metall shelves were placed around 200 "Product Sculptures", which were part of an specific site installation in a landmark protected kiosk pavillon in Berlin in 1996. Five photographs (cibachromes) were corresponding to this installation, showing details of the Berlin installation. Semjon got inspired to this Trier version by the essay of Barbara Straka, writing about the Berlin version of 1996: "... A second artistic connection naturally establishes itself, especially in the 'Kiosk' installation, with Joseph Beuys and his installation originating from 1984, 'Wirtschaftswerte'. At that time Beuys set up hundreds of goods from the GDR [...]. The contrast of deficiency and wealth, everyday and art, goods and artwork, the eternal and transitory are also polarities the artistic work of Semjon. 'Beuys was concerned with the transitory, for me it is about eternity' formulates Semjon in a conservation."

Semjon presented the draft of the final status quo of the installation. It will be a fixed home for the 1996 temporary and now 'homeless' "Kiosk" installation. He has designed a mobile kiosk pavillon, set on wheels, to be seen as a representative and prototype of the kiosk creation. The Trier version marked a Beuys reference since the shelves in context with the goods refer in this mode to the Beusy installation "Wirtschaftswerte".

The second group dealed with his drawings, the "Structural Drawings". They are abstract and structural all over charcoal drawings on paper (28 1/2 x 22 7/8 " incl. frame). Through the densification of horizontal and vertical lines as well as grid structures combined with the rhythm of light and dark contrast, the series becomes a differenciated charcter. Sebastian Preuss, art critic and editor at the Berliner Zeitung writes in the catalog: "... They soon turn to drawings less dense with airy, interlaced lines and calligraphically graceful structural analysis. The écriture automatique of the Surrealists appears here just as much as the allover of the Abstract Expressionists. Semjon drawings offer without doubt an indipendent reverberation o fthe abstract post war art."

At this exhibition Semjon realized for his first time a mural charcoal drawing (ca. 9' x 18').


An Art Edtion as well as a catalog will accompany this exhibtion.