After two postponements due to the pandemic – Michael Kutschbach, who currently lives in Adelaide/Australia, will be presenting his latest work in the exhibition benthos boborygmi*.

In 2021, Michael Kutschbach realized a multi-channel video project which was the culmination of a Guildhouse funded ‘Collections Project’, made in partnership with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the City of Adelaide. As a differentiated body of sound and moving-image, the world premiere of the multi-channel video »fuliguline« took place in Adelaide across various public spaces, including city projections and the large-scale Adelaide Festival Centre outdoor screens.

Due to the pandemic, there was initially little direct contact with the orchestra. Yet, as Adelaide emerged from lockdown and began to resume with its cultural programs, the artist could sit in on rehearsals and concerts, interact with members of the orchestra, and search out ways in which his visual work could find its analogue to the orchestral experience.

The resulting artistic interpretation speaks of a biomorphic, abstract language and at the same time reflects the artist's interest in ‘siphonophores’, which look like jellyfish but are actually colonial organisms made up of many individual creatures. Siphonophores lead a symbiotic life and are correspondingly diverse. Synonymous to the dissonant orchestral ‘tuning’ before a concert, when musicians warm up with their instruments, Kutschbach offers a shifting visual cacophony, which is expressed in the individual moving-image sequences on the three monitors. This seemingly visual chaos abruptly turns into a harmonious chord/triad when concordances arise at various moments throughout the video’s duration.

Analogous to the moving-image work, which is shown in the gallery as a three-channel video presentation (but can be expanded to a 15-channel video), another group of works will be presented. Small-format wall objects in complimentary form and material also take up the aspect of the multifaceted. They are made of pewter, glass, and coloured acrylic fibres. As with the siphonophore, their multiformity generates completely new, previously unseen visual and materialized 'images' that, on closer inspection, generate their own harmony, and could be understood as architectural wall ornaments.

The soft and flowing printed silk draping from the ceiling of the exhibition room complements the exhibition to form a triad: It is the moving image as a triptych, there are the small relief wall ornaments and the photographic, digitally enhanced image, in its materialized lightness embracing the gallery space.

Once again, Michael Kutschbach presents his idiosyncratic process, his claim to material divergence and his artistic handling across media. He composes this eloquently into a temporary installation, much the same as he has done over the past 10 years at Semjon Contemporary. It was not for nothing that the gallery opened in 
2010 with his solo exhibition »hoi polloi«!  
The next decade is heralded by him again. Come what may!

Semjon H.N. Semjon, January 2022

* benthos refers to sea life at the bottom of the sea, borborygmi to the sound of ones stomach 
growling.

benthos boborygmi

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