Sorcha Dallas

A chrome-plated hand made out of plaster and lying on a drinking glass put upside down, is holding a dead bird. Thus reads the description of a sculpture by Annette Ruenzler. The artist constructs visually absurd constellations; domestic objects, plaster-casts of cut-off body parts and other obscure objects gain a life of their own and establish connections for which they have never been destined. But it is not by extravagance that Annette Ruenzler’s work captivates us. On the contrary, her presentations appear at first rather similar, as they take reference to art historical positions inscribed in our memory. These references, which Annette Ruenzler uses almost anachronistically, are only of a formal interest to her. The artist uses them in order to expand into something, which is out there but concealed and mystified.

For Art Statements, Annette Ruenzler creates a room and thus a place that is equally associated with domesticity and security as with something potentially eerie and violent. Being of a rather makeshift nature, the room consists of just three walls, which separate the internal from the external, as well of objects populating the interior space. The interior and its objects visualise a spatial and mental inner life which is shifting between form and meaning.