© Images Roman März
KRIS MARTIN
FAIRY TALES
KÖNIG BERLIN
25 FEBRUARY – 20 MARCH 2022
Kris Martin is known for strictly conceptual works in various media. His drawings, photographs, ready-mades and collages always display an elegant and sensual approach to materiality. He often uses pre-coded material, such as symbols and systems, or elements from the history of art and literature. He edits these only very slightly, so that they lose their original function, and an intriguing void is created. Texts also serve the artist as a starting point and material for his works.
The exhibition FAIRY TALES comprises 13 collages from Martin's ongoing series END POINTS. In these works, he cuts out the final points from books of different genres, such as Anne Frank's diary or political essays, and glues them each onto a blank sheet of paper, which is inscribed only with the corresponding book title. Each of the exhibited works bears the title of a different fairy tale, such as Cinderella, Pinocchio, or Alice in Wonderland.
Decontextualised on a blank page, the cut-out dots seem strangely lost, weightless. By using only the smallest unit of a text which in combination with the respective book title refers to the entire preceding story, Martin achieves the greatest possible reduction of his material. The artist's gesture and individual handwriting become visible solely in the book titles noted in pencil at the bottom of the pages, situating the works in their various contexts. Instead of placing himself at the centre of his art as creator, Martin's work is based on the appropriation of what already exists, on the deliberate omission of certain elements and on revealing free spaces in which the viewer's imagination can unfold.
25 FEBRUARY – 20 MARCH 2022
Kris Martin is known for strictly conceptual works in various media. His drawings, photographs, ready-mades and collages always display an elegant and sensual approach to materiality. He often uses pre-coded material, such as symbols and systems, or elements from the history of art and literature. He edits these only very slightly, so that they lose their original function, and an intriguing void is created. Texts also serve the artist as a starting point and material for his works.
The exhibition FAIRY TALES comprises 13 collages from Martin's ongoing series END POINTS. In these works, he cuts out the final points from books of different genres, such as Anne Frank's diary or political essays, and glues them each onto a blank sheet of paper, which is inscribed only with the corresponding book title. Each of the exhibited works bears the title of a different fairy tale, such as Cinderella, Pinocchio, or Alice in Wonderland.
Decontextualised on a blank page, the cut-out dots seem strangely lost, weightless. By using only the smallest unit of a text which in combination with the respective book title refers to the entire preceding story, Martin achieves the greatest possible reduction of his material. The artist's gesture and individual handwriting become visible solely in the book titles noted in pencil at the bottom of the pages, situating the works in their various contexts. Instead of placing himself at the centre of his art as creator, Martin's work is based on the appropriation of what already exists, on the deliberate omission of certain elements and on revealing free spaces in which the viewer's imagination can unfold.