Works from Troika's ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Alternate Past’ series are exhibited in the group exhibition ‘Labyrinth Konkret’ featuring over 40 works by artists including Mark Wallinger, Jakob Bill, Heinz Mack and Vera Röhm.
Both ‘Labyrinth’ and ‘Alternate Past’ are drawings that link the structure of the labyrinth to the passage of time, and that consist of a labyrinthine and meandering path created once with candle soot (Labyrinth) and once with coloured smoke bombs (Alternate Past).
Both works stem from Troika’s interest in the genesis and geometry of the labyrinth as an ambiguous diagram and are part of a series of works in which the artists re-appropriate logically derived systems, mathematical sequences and rules by submitting them to uncontrollable or unpredictable elements.
Here, wooden multicursal maze-structures were placed on wet paper and submitted to candle soot and coloured smoke bombs as an attempt to plot movement over time as well as to investigate the topology of a geometry that is representative for structural sophistication and technological mastery.
Once the smoke has left its trace, the wooden structure is removed making invisible what created the path in the first place, and omitting all other possibilities or routes originally inherent in the maze.
With both ‘ Labyrinth' and 'Alternate Past', Troika continue their research into the labyrinth as an archetype, both a psychological phenomenon and as an image to describe the inconclusive or indeterminate character of knowledge.
Curated by Marlene Lauterbach.