From a fluff of dust to a satellite image of nighttime London – Ilka Helmig investigates the phenotypes, the modes of physical appearance of images and objects. She traces the structures and processes of growth, whether ordered or chaotic. And she searches for an aesthetic of the incidental. An aesthetic-dissecting eye for the structures of our world characterizes the works of the Aachen artist, and most of these were created specially for the Phénotype exhibition in the Ludwig Forum Aachen.
Taking center stage is a convoluted sculpture out of timber beams that encroaches on and threatens to consume the exhibition space. Like a scaffold that has fallen apart, the structure out of square and hexagonal beams moves through the space. Ilka Helmig has set out a few construction parameters in advance, for instance the selection of the timber beams. She has cut them into sections of various lengths and in a way that their ends feature a variety of angles. This means that connecting the sections can only be planned to a limited extent and the wooden construct meanders through the exhibition space, as chance would have it. The construction is comple-mented by drawings, photographs, and microscopic detailing, for example in the corresponding form of a wall drawing made out of tape. It, too, moves in more or less prescribed boundaries, but within these the actual movement is completely unpredictable. The artist still has further branches to add – accumulations and changes turn the exhibition itself into a growth process.
In other works as well Ilka Helmig looks closely at chaotic and ordered structures, at regularity and irregularity: through a microscope she photographs a drop of dried milk or a dust particle. At the same time she studies the layouts of cities or the patterns of agricultural fields in an aerial shot. By juxtaposing biologically- and culturally-conditioned structures Ilka Helmig reveals unforeseen aesthetic connections and visual classifications. Her priority here is not to furnish the logical reasoning of these structural processes but generate artistic and comparative perception and knowledge. A catalogue will be published to accompany the exhibition.
Ilka Helmig (*1971) works at the interface between art and design. After studying design in Nuremberg she studied fine arts in Bonn. Since 2007 she is Professor of Visual Conception and Drawing at the Aachen University of Applied Sciences.
Curated by Dr. Brigitte Franzen and Esther Boehle
llka Helmig – Phénotype, Installation Views
Photos: Carl Brunn / Ludwig Forum Aachen
