The title of a/topic N°3 point line surface solid simulacrum is taken from the preface by Thomas McEvilley from the now canonical text Inside the White Cube by Brian O’Doherty. It says: “the beginning was a blank where there appeared inexplicably a spot which stretched into a line, which flowed into a plane, which folded into a solid, which cast a shadow, which is what we see.“ In the following, however, the author no longer ends this Platonic enumeration with “shadow” but with “simulacrum“. He writes: “This set of elements – point, line, surface, solid, simulacrum – conceived as contentless except in their own-nature, is the primary equipment of much of modern art.“ Thus the simulacrum stands at the end of a formal development and unlike the shadow, which merely throws back an image, the simulacrum is far more emancipated: it can be an image and illusion, similar but not the same, a simulation, a virtual hyper-reality that replaces reality.
On the basis of point line surface solid simulacrum as a formal and content-related basis, a/topic N°3 is being created for the first time in digital form as a curated online exhibition with works by Adel Akram Alameddine, Ana Alex Tabatadze, Anna Huhn, Daniel Neubacher, Hannah Regenberg, Jessica Mester, Lucas Odahara, Lulu Mendelova, Max Schaffer, Norman Sandler and Z. Schmidt and a text by Sabrina Mandanici. Lucas Odahara’s intervention opens the visual and thematic introduction to the third edition of a/topic during the launch at GAK with the works “You promised me a deserted island” and “A Glimpse of Desire”. The works combine various physical and digital elements, such as 3D models of copies of ancient statues, which are inserted into the GAK’s virtual exhibition space and at the same time into the artist’s personal visual material, thus creating an “online queer utopian environment” (L. Odahara). Despite its digital nature, however, this work defies the logic of the internet by being materially anchored on two personalized computers.
a/topic is a space for artistic perspectives in magazine form. Since 2013 the project presents the work of young artistic positions. The starting point of the collaboration is always one or more associative quotations from a selected text. Curated and edited by Yvonne Bialek, Nina Kruse and Anna Maria Müller, designed by Kruse & Müller, a/topic is produced twice a year in Bremen and Berlin.
An event to the exhibition “Dealing with Surfaces”.
With an intervention by Lucas Odahara:
“You promised me a deserted island”(GIF online, Lucas Odahara’s personal computer, unburned clay, 2015)
“A Glimpse of Desire” (GIF online, Yvonne Bialek’s personal computer, unfired clay, 2015)