Liminal Dilution

In their first artistic collaborative project Emanuel Rossetti and Phillip Zach produce an improvisational set of sculptural works that imagine a second architecture in the space, zones at once barely existing yet at the same time defining the viewer’s path. 'Liminal Dilution' overlays incidental architectures with large shifts in Istanbul’s urban landscape. The fourteen skyscrapers built in the year preceding the work’s creation for example - a sign of the rapid development that for a large proportion of the population means increasing instability. Is expansion always a dilution, and how could one, as part of this expansion, imagine this transitional space differently?

'Wandering through this endless nothingness, the eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.'
Excerpt from Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958) by William Barrett

The duo share an interest in Rem Koolhaas ‘junkspace,’ which the architect describes as 'what coagulates while modernization is in progress… the product of an encounter between escalator and air-conditioning, conceived in an incubator of Sheetrock (all three missing from the history books).' Material experiments, prototypes, and ‘real life architectural models’ as the artists refer to them, made from materials at hand, form a stylistically amorphous furniture collection of sorts.

A wooden packing crate is mounted with the image of a deep sea fish and a home-made electrical circuit whose blue diode is not unlike the fish’s light-emitting appendage. Hexagonal sections of carpet are variously corrugated with heavy paint, printed with groups of cities (Athens, Amsterdam, Ankara, Brussels, or Paris), and littered with glass stones and takeaway boxes. This bricolage of rippled transparent partitions, ephemera of interior fittings, catering and office supplies, and motley furnishings of global business acts to dress down the seamless polish of the Sishane Otopark in which they are installed. They import into and discover within the existing architecture impermanent, mobile, flexible, diffused, and incomplete elements.

Emanuel Rossetti (b. 1987, Basel) is an artist living and working in Basel. He received his BFA from Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK), Zurich. Selected solo exhibitions include Karma International, Los Angeles, 2015; Delay Dust at Kunsthalle Bern; The Modern Institute, Glasgow , 2014; The Power Station, Dallas, 2013. Recent group shows include LangeStrasse 31, Frankfurt; Ellis King, Dublin; Fri Art Kunsthalle, Fribourg, 2015; Hepworth Wakefield; LiveInYourHead, Geneva, 2014; Francesca Pia, Zurich; Arnolfini, Bristol, 2013; Kunsthall Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, 2011; Kunstwerke, Berlin; Burning Bridges, New York, 2010.

Phillip Zach (b. 1984, Cottbus) is an artist living and working in Zürich and Los Angeles. He received his BFA from University of Fine Arts, Hamburg and later studied at Städelschule, Frankfurt. Selected solo exhibitions include Freedman Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles; Laurel Doody, Los Angeles, 2016; Koppe Astner, Glasgow, 2015; New Jerseyy, Basel; Johan Berggren Gallery, Malmö, 2013; Flute Douce Artspace, Frankfurt, 2012; Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2011. Recent group shows include Laura Bartlett, London; Supplement, London; 31st Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana; Casey Kaplan, New York; Der TANK, Basel; DREI, Cologne; Centre d'art de Fribourg, 2015; Freedman Fitzpatrick, Los Angeles; Philipp Pflug Contemporary, Frankfurt; Grand Century, New York; White Flag Projects, St. Louis; Paramount Ranch, Los Angeles, 2014; Greene Naftali Gallery, New York, 2013. Zach was awarded residencies at Gasmesserhaus, Zürich, 2015 and Hessische Kulturstiftung, Wiesbaden, 2014.