Substance is the drj-exhibition over the turn of the years 2018 to 2019.

Sculpture and drawing by Jan van Munster [NL] + Susan York [US] are complemented with photography by Friederike von Rauch [DE] and a sound interpretation, arranged and mixed by Marcel Dettmann.

Since the 1960’s, Jan van Munster, born in 1939 in Gorinchem [Netherlands], has been using the most disparate materials, from granite to wood, from humidity to light, in his sculptural work to make his engagement with the artistic transformation of natural phenomena tangible. He visualizes these tensions and oppositions, for example between heat and cold, light and darkness, or positive and negative polarity, in clear three-dimensional, geometric and technical forms. He counts as one of the most important and well-known minimal-concrete Dutch artists. The focus in Substance is on neon works and drawings as well as on sculptures that visualize magnetism as a force of nature. Van Munster’s can be seen not only in important public and private collections and museums, but also in many public spaces.

Jan van Munster lives and works in Oost-Souburg, Zeeland [NL] and is the founder and operator of the IK Foundation there.

Susan York’s sculpture and drawing live in the tradition of American Minimal Art yet her work has its own unique identity. The silvery black shimmering and always slightly asymmetrical cubes are created from pure, fine graphite powder. The artist compresses the powdery material into refractory forms and fires them to a high temperature in a kiln. Compact cubes of various sizes are created in this way. The raw forms then undergo their forming process by being cut and polished in a very extensive process. Hovering on the wall they betray nothing of their massive, heavy contents. They just shimmer – far removed from this world – catching the light and invite the viewer and his astonished eye to contemplate. “The quiet, constant world of repetition forms my work. My hope is that the viewer can taste this calm and sink into its emptiness.”, Susan York writes. Her graphic work also follows this principle.

Susan York was born in 1951 in Newport, Rhode Island, she lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.

Architecture, landscape, and surfaces are the subjects of Friederike von Rauch’s photographs. In carefully selected details, the artist consistently brings the essential to the fore. The photographs distinguish themselves through a certain timelessness as well as an absence of place. With her particular way of «emptying” her images, she attains an intense degree of reduction in material content. The images are marked not by their staging but rather by their stillness and concentrated state. The subject is often of secondary importance. The tight focus on the detail leads to the abstraction of the thing depicted; the observer surmises that she is seeing the intrinsic nature of the motif. The artist’s insistence on a purist aesthetic begins with her very decision to work with an analogue camera; it involves a deliberate choice of subject as well as intent decisions about the composition and the right lighting conditions at the site. Light plays a defining role in the photographs, which capture harmonic ambiences of luminosity that, together with the smooth transitions on the mat surface of the paper, are crucial to the sensuality of the images. The cool aesthetic seems to counter an emotionality that is difficult to grasp. This is what invites the viewer to reflect deeply on the subjects of her images.

Friederike von Rauch was born in Freiburg in 1967 and studied at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. She lives and works in Berlin.

»RAUCH« is a sonic interpretation of the work of photographer Friederike von Rauch, composed collaboratively by Berlin-based producers Felix K, Marcel Dettmann, Sa Pa and Simon Hoffmann. Arranged and mixed by Marcel Dettmann, the recording stands in dialogue with von Rauch’s architectural images of post-World European monasteries, including La Tourette by Le Corbusier near Lyon, Roosenberg Abbey near Ghent and Maria Regina Martyrum in Berlin. The images were first exhibited together with the music on the LP as part of an installation for von Rauch’s solo show »insgeheim« («in secret”), held at the Goethe-Institut Paris during the international Paris Photo art fair in November 2017.

While the complimentary relationship between the sounds of »RAUCH« [«smoke”] and the images exhibited invites interpretation, both can also be experienced as separate artistic entities. On the 42-minute-long LP, drones, modulating harmonic soundscapes and implied rhythms maintain an abstract emotional core while occasionally taking on vaporous, amorphous qualities.

Similarly, von Rauch’s images – often borderline abstract in composition – resist being identified by location or spatial context. Nevertheless, they also hint at their spiritual origin. »RAUCH« is part of an ongoing artistic collaboration between Marcel Dettmann and Friederike von Rauch, which includes 2011’s Ash installation and three photographic works for Dettmann releases on Ostgut Ton.