Touch Release at Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Artists: Andreas Amble, Moriah Askenaizer, Cudelice Brazelton IV, Alex Chalmers, Arnaud Ferron, Lorenz Ganthaler, Zishi Han, Aerin Hong, Mariam Kvirikashvili, Guy Lee, Antonis Magoulas, David Moser, Thủy Tiên Nguyễn, Emmilou Rößling, Alex Thake, Maria Toumazou, Francisco M.V., Ian Waelder, Matt Welch, Alicja Wysocka, Miran Yang

Exhibition title: Touch Release

Curated in collaboration with: Tom Engels

Venue: Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, Germany

Date: October 29 – December 19, 2021

Photography: Ivan Murzin, Janine Drewes, Christian Lauer / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Our innards we our innards metallic feeling we are feeling, thinking round and round we think round and round only slowly again now this. Only slowly yes now this, when did this begin? We sleep a bit bits of dreams drop through rotten floors we are wooden. We pull tiny strings we internet so many so many tiny strings names names names. But hands.
(Simone Forti, Letters to the President, Oh, Tongue, 2003)

To embrace the politics of intimacy is to gather propositions that embody, narrate, and challenge the inconsistencies of handling and letting go. In the paradoxical juxtaposition of seemingly opposing forces, Touch Release considers what is produced in between. It explores the interstices between the impermeable and the porous, between proximity and otherness, in times where the forces that guide the public body and its inner workings are in a state of flux.

At the junction of site-specific installation, painting, sculpture, video, and sound, twenty-one students and alumni from Haegue Yang’s class at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste—Städelschule present distinct works that are held in gravitational proximity, falling in and out of affinity. Marked by the circumstances of its production, Touch Release forms the very first physical union of artists who have shared a past trajectory, developing the reciprocity of touch, the aversion to it, and the consequences in between.

Touch Release unhinges a merely physical conception of touch and steers it toward a layered understanding of what it means to approach, connect, and let go. Touch Release comprehends touch as an accumulation of forces that run through and govern both object and body — often inseparably. It addresses them as sites of transformation, channeling how they come to bear traces, how they move and are moved, how they leak, rub, condense, perspire, and transmit. Together, to sensitize the limits of control and what might lie beyond.

– Tom Engels

Alex Chalmers, CONSTELLATION 1-4, 2021, Framed C-print photographs, 52 × 37 cm each frame

Moriah Askenaizer, To Child, 2021, Oil, watercolor and chestnut leaves, 340 × 300 cm

Maria Toumazou, La Mort, 2020, Steel, copper, glass, 16 × 12 × 11 cm

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Guy Lee, Untitled (refrigerator lights), 2021, Fridge light and cabling Dimensions variable

Guy Lee, An Address (short), 2021, SD video with sound and subtitles, 24min 40sec

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Cudelice Brazelton IV, Totem, 2020, Clay, steel rods, pomade, 320 cm

Alex Thake, ASYLUM PIECE, 2021, Rendered lard into glycerine with sodium hydroxide, Kochbrunnen spring water, Dead Sea salt, lightbulb, electric wire, Dimensions variable

Mariam Kvirikashvili, Standing Curtain, 2021, Acrylic corrugated sheet, acrylic glass, 191,5 × 110 × 49 cm

Andreas Amble, Untitled, 2020-2021, Watercolor on paper, enamel on steel on standing frame, 210 × 100 × 7 cm

Mariam Kvirikashvili, Leaning Columns, 2021, laser print and cut-out of plastic envelope, 17,5 × 11,5 cm

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Andreas Amble, Untitled, 2020-2021, Watercolor on paper, enamel on steel on standing frame, 210 × 100 × 7 cm

Alex Thake, ASYLUM PIECE, 2021, Rendered lard into glycerine with sodium hydroxide, Kochbrunnen spring water, Dead Sea salt, lightbulb, electric wire, Dimensions variable

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

David Moser, Body 20 + 18 (Desire as a Symptom), 2020 “L” shaped DIN A4 plexiglass presenters, screws, stickers, signatures, 183 × 20 × 30 cm

Zishi Han, exuviae II, 2021, Aluminium chain barriers, steel, chains, subwoofers, ceramic, wood, steel, case, amplifier, pump, Chitosan powder, car cleaning liquid, cables, silicon tubes, vibration Dimensions variable

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Lorenz Ganthaler, Delayed Echo with Oblique Origins, 2021 Epoxy, metal, plastilline, 80 × 160 × 130 cm

Ian Waelder, You who are the stranger, 2021, Opel Olympia headlight (1935-1947 approx), cabling, stereo track, loudspeakers, Dimensions variable

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Ian Waelder, Family Nose (Bare Hands) no1. 2021, Steel sheet, wood, glue, laser prints, tape, papier-mâché, 25 × 50 cm

Ian Waelder, Family Nose (Bare Hands) no2. 2021, Steel sheet, wood, glue, laser prints, tape, papier-mâché, 25 × 50 cm

Ian Waelder, Family Nose (Bare Hands) no3. 2021 Steel sheet, wood, glue, laser prints, tape, papier-mâché, 25 × 50 cm

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Maria Toumazou, Doctors’ apartment block, 2021 Photographic C-print on alu dibond, 30 × 5 cm

Aerin Hong, Shield, 2021, Glass, pollen, wood scrap, 180 × 160 cm

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Arnaud Ferron, Untitled (piss and blood), 2021, Stickers throughout the space and area Each sticker, 7 × 10 cm

Alex Chalmers, UNTITLED 1-6, 2020-2021, Enamel on metal sphere diameter, 20 cm each

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Arnaud Ferron, Shopwindow (piss and blood), 2021, Plywood, Apfelwein, red wine, 215 × 105 × 25 cm

Touch Release, 2021, exhibition view, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden

Matt Welch, Brain Fog, 2021, 4K video with sound 60min 40sec; Untitled (a room for Christopher Knight), 2021 Lowered ceiling, plastic sheeting, duct tape, timber 475 × 365 × 200 cm