Brigitte Kowanz, afaik, 2020

2020

Medium

Neon and mirror

Dimensions

50 × 100 cm

Edition

Ex. 1/3

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-155968

Brigitte Kowanz‘ new series Acronyms (2020) illustrates how the progress of digitization is also changing our language. In the artist's own handwriting, common abbreviations of English idioms in everyday digital exchange such as tbh (to be honest), afaik (as far as I know), or omg (oh my god) are depicted in neon letters. The neon texts are handwritten and bring, on the one hand, a graphic element with its own rhythm to the works. On the other hand, the acronyms are even further coded, as the handwritten texts are not clearly decipherable. The acronyms symbolize the speed and internationality of today's communication. Kowanz herself describes, language and signs give us “the possibility of concretizing meanings and communicating them. They are media for the translation of intellectual processes, but they also have their limits. Thinking, speaking and writing are diverse processes of translation and transformation. I am not interested in language as a one-dimensional linear explanatory model, but as a multi-layered and dazzling phenomenon that has its own formulation options in both science and poetry." In the two works tbh and afaik (both 2020), Brigitte Kowanz expands the level of translation and transformation of language through a further process and the inclusion of the viewer in the works of art. The two letterings are embedded within a mirrored, glass showcase, through which the writing is reproduced into infinity. At the same time, the viewer is included in the work of art through a convex mirror lens and can see himself and his own immediate surroundings interwoven with the writing. For Kowanz, "mirrors, as a material for artistic work, enable recipients to be included, to let them become part of the work and to create virtual spaces."