Charlotte Posenenske || Series DW Vierkantrohre (Square Tubes) [Angular pieces], 1967/2018
”Before turning away from art production in 1968 in favor of a career in sociology, Charlotte Posenenske exhibited widely alongside peers such as Hanne Darboven, Donald Judd, and Sol LeWitt, with whom she shared an interest in seriality. However, her work is distinguished by its radically open-ended nature. Embracing reductive geometry, repetition, and industrial fabrication, she developed a form of mass-produced sculptural Minimalism that addressed the pressing socioeconomic concerns of the decade by circumventing the art market and rejecting established formal and cultural hierarchies.
Mass production and variability are also at the heart of Posenenske’s subsequent works. Series D consists of six shapes in galvanized sheet steel. While these elements resemble standard ventilation ducts, the tubes are nonetheless custom-made according to the artist’s instructions and sketches. Shortly after conceptualizing Series D, Posenenske created Series DW, a variant with only four shapes produced from lightweight corrugated cardboard. A ready-made material, cardboard nonetheless represents a departure from the aesthetics of the steel tubes, which are in effect almost indistinguishable, in form and provenance, from the functional elements that they refer to. Larger but more manageable than their sharp-edged steel counterparts, the Series DW components are also easier to manipulate.” [source]
July 15th, 2019
The Humble Fabulist 