14. Juni bis 27. Juli 2008 deutsche version

Sara MacKillop has a fondness for the forms and colors of the everyday. The interest applies to the things that, after testing for handling and color, were approved and then produced en masse before eventually gracing our offices and recreational worlds as commodities. She finds her material — such as ballpoint pens, envelopes, or vinyl record sleeves — at flea markets and in one-euro shops.

The work reflects multifarious artistic processes. Repetitions of modular forms in regular or varying sizes (mounts, 2006), (envelope piece, 2004-2008) are positioned next to austere geometric surface studies, developed from the formal logic of their original materials and suspended in a tension-filled relationship to the background (blank pages, 2007), (inner sleeve, 2007). Next to these, other succinctly-placed everyday objects reveal an unfamiliar facet of their gestalt, accentuating the correlation between art and space (ringbinder, 2008).

 

MacKillop’s arrangements imbue the exhibition space with meaningful dimension. In the piece neck pen (2004), for example, a red and white pen attached to a cord necklace dangles from corner of the room, fastened to the wall in two places. The lightweight sculpture balances between two walls of the exhibition space, thus maintaining its stability. The edges of the pen form a system of coordinates, allowing us to measure the dimensions of this little space with our eyes. MacKillop’s process resembles that of a writer, where the use of punctuation imbues an accumulation of words with sense and lyrical impact. The works engraft themselves into the space subtly and quietly. Without conquering it completely, they punctuate it here and there, opening our gaze to the order in its fixed and hollow spaces.