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"In the case of this installation, personal involvement guarantees some control over events and some say in the sound/language and light/image. The ancient origins of salt and coal on the one hand and the technological construction of a light and sound module governed by movement on the other, are by no means irreconcilable opposites."
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Centre of Contemporary Art Christchurch New Zealand. 24 March - 13 April. Border and Line encompasses a physical journey within the exhibition space of an art gallery, and invites the inquisitive traveller to partake in a process of discovery and selfawareness. Rainer Jurghanns' realisation of a work of art is open to alteration and permutation as he seeks to make tangible, in materials and forms, the resolved image. The conception and construction of the artwork is a procedure involving chance and revelation. In a similar way, in Border and Line the gallery visitor must participate with Junghanns' installation in a process that requires exploration, analysis, and questioning. This active involvement engages the spectator's selfperception, and makes them a participant in their own, and Junghanns' ongoing journey of discovery. Border and Line comprises of lines of coal and salt, twenty metres long and thirty centimetres wide set parallel to one another, and spread the length of the gallery floor, As the participant enters the darkened room lightpads that meander through the lines of salt and coal seem to flicker in response to the sounds of a taped ocean wave, and the evocation of elemental forces. At the far and of the gallery a lightpad attached to the wall with a text by Nietzsche encourages and draws the visitor towards it. Ten metres from the wall the gallery visitor's presence is sensed by a movement detector that engages the lightpad on the line of coal, and diminishes the sound of the wave, replacing it with a recitation of a Nietzsche poem, accompanied to music. Concurrently, the remaining walls reveal a series of rhythmic Polaroid shots of drawings by the artist, and a wooden box stained by wet and dry cement, unfolded and extended flat on the gallery wall. At the gallery exit a security camera and video silently records and monitors the visitor's presence within the room. Boundaries and lines within this installation are both physically visible and invisible, Tangible lines of salt and coal define the gallery's proportions and require the spectator to physically step over them to acquire further information and understanding. However, this demarcation of the space within the room is only one means of establishing its dimensions and engaging the visitor's presence. The movement detector and lightpad also define and measure, giving substance to the reality of the gallery visitor, and initiating a selfconscious sense of actuality. Hence, being takes place and is realised in distinct, yet sometimes comparable ways. Junghanns clarifies this in the artwork on adjacent walls. The Polaroid photographs of drawings by the artist are not the same experience as the drawings themselves. Rather than act as individual works, caught between the figurative and the abstract, they lie in rhythmical lines across the wall and place emphasis upon the structure, order, and sense of ritual an artist can impose upon their work. The camera that watches the gallery visitor also manifests an alternative point of view. As the viewer is recorded, the installation is metamorphosed into a separate artwork for an audience watching from outside the gallery. Recorded or video this material may also initiate new possibilities in Junghanns?s future work. The concern with the need to cross boundaries and borders in order to acquire knowledge or awareness reveals a sense of Germany?s history, and the previous division between east and west. Junghanns? use of a security camera, the pervasive presence of such devices in modern society, and the limitations they place on the individual, is important to the artist. He also makes use of materials such as coal and salt, in conjunction with contemporary technology to evoke a sense that the present is vitally informed by the past. The use of ancient materials with technological constructions is by no means irreconcilable, As Germany moves towards the twenty-first century he believes that there is a danger of the country?s people losing knowledge of their past. Coal is a basic element of the earth?s surface, the terrain to which ultimately we will all return, yet also the energy from which Germany historically formed its modern wealth in the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century. Salt has also been crucial to Europe?s economy, especially during the Middle Ages, and is an essential element within the waters of the ocean. Through these materials Junghanns represents the fundamental matter of the earth. The placement and construction of these elements within the gallery is executed with a sense of order and ceremony. The symmetry of the installation, the presence of the text by Nietzsche, and the stereo system, seek to transfigure the gallery into a place of contemplation and devotion. The presence of text at the far end of the room indicates the importance the written work is assigned in religion, and evokes the significant role played by the totem or fetish in earlier, more ancient cultures. Encircled by light, darkness, the elemental sounds and forces of the earth anti ocean, Border and Line touches upon the profound and elevated. Junghanns conceives the experience of the sublime landscape, evoking the vision of German artists such as C. D. Friedrich, as the spectator is drawn into an engagement with, and an awareness of, self and spirit. Warren Feeney
Border and Line. Rainer Junghanns.
This conception of the artwork as a continually evolving process is also evident in the wooden box, elongated and flattened across the opposite wall. This work found its life as the result of Junghanns seeking to construct a monument to a departed friend. When the frame was removed from around the concrete that he had poured into it, the wooden box itself seemed more suitable as the completed artwork than the planned monument. The process and journey towards the work of art had led to an alternative solution.
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