Berlin, November 17, 2016 – February 26, 2017, http://www.discursus.info/
The two rooms of the gallery (front and back) were each given to one of the artists. It felt like a double solo show with two spatially separate gallery zones. Each of the works was quite different. Peter Vink’s large scale installation in the front room directly connected the exterior of the gallery with the interior. He continued an established approach of building on existing architectural elements. The horizontal LED illuminated rods that transversed the space were on one hand continuations of the decorative elements on the building’s exterior façade and on the other hand they became spatial obstacles for visitors who entered the room. They were both architectural and sculptural.
Jofroi Amaral’s installation in the back room of the gallery was very different and there did not seem to be any connecting element between the two works. The installation consisted of canvases, a paint-covered ball and a bike, which appeared to be decorated by small comic style drawings. There was a connecting element of the cirle/spehere: The painted shape on the canvas, the ball, and the bike wheels. This introduced a feeling of dynamism. But a lot of the expression remained cryptic.
From the point of view of a generic geometric categorization, one could talk about a dialogue between a straight line (Vink) and a circle (Amaral). The line and a circle happen to be the basic elements of the Korean alphabet, and Discursus seems to have to backing or connection to Korea (Art Council of Korea and Daegu Art Foundation logos on the press release). The line and circle elements can also be traced back to the surface of the Earth/Sea and the round shape of celestial bodies… so there may be some symbolism in play here, but it is mere speculation.