Doubletake

Solo exhibition “Double Take” by Timotheus Tomicek

2018

The beginning is black, white, and double. And yet simple: we only have to choose from one of two entrances. Either choice leads us down a long and narrow room. If we enter the left side, we see loosely arranged objects in front of us and a white curtain to our right. If we enter the right side, we see loosely arranged objects in front of us and a white curtain to our left.

It wouldn’t be wise to reveal more at this point. Only that in the end everything turns white—left, right, and center. And since white is the lightest color of all, and even if “achromatic colors” are created by mixing complementary colors, we can assume that there is more than meets the eye between the initial black and white and the white light at the end.
That being the case, the installation “double take” doesn’t necessarily anticipate a second glance for us to relativize our first impressions of the objects on display. There is opportunity, however, for us to take a more conclusive second glance while traversing the space as we turn our attention from an object to—and through—the dividing curtain. Only then will the classic double-take effect occur. We will ask ourselves if what we saw behind the translucid white curtain is really a mirror image of the object across from it. The answer to this question is unclear: the drapery that divides the space causes the other side to appear too blurry to tell.

Does the ladder propped up near the white end of the installation help us to overcome the border between here and there to better distinguish what lies beyond? Perhaps to determine if the egg is actually identical to the one it resembles? Even if we crossed this border, we would remain in a place just beyond the one we left.

Timotheus Tomicek’s installation is best traversed in the sense of Deleuze/Guattari in that their “readers”” step into the role of their viewers. The authors write: “We employ a dualism of models only in order to arrive at a process that challenges all models. Each time, mental correctives are necessary to undo the dualisms we have no wish to construct but through which we pass. Arrive at the magic formula we all seek — PLURALISM = MONISM – via all the dualisms that are the enemy, an entirely necessary enemy, the furniture we are forever rearranging.” (Craig Lundy, History and Becoming – Deleuze’s Philosophy of Creativity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2012, p. 66)

Besides, the white light in “double take” is not the end. It only marks the end of the first passage, which is the beginning of the next one. (Text Lucas Gehrmann)An in-depth exhibition review by Carlos Kong (Critic in Residence 2018) can be read here.

Opening photos (c) eSeL.at – Joanna Pianka

// https://w.dasweissehaus.at/en/exhibition/vorschau-eroffnung-der-einzelausstellung-double-take/ //