PRESS
RELEASE
Adrian Köhler ‘Benefit of Doubt’
2 December 19h00 2008 to 24 January 2009
Upstairs at 34Long Fine Art.
Adrian Köhler is one of Cape Town’s upcoming generation of sculptors. His second solo show at 34Long Fine Art presents his continuing exploration into transformations of meaning that accompany transformations of material.
His straight-faced skill in painstaking reproduction destabilizes apparent meaning in subtle ways, drawing the viewer into existential questions about what is valued, what is displayed, what is used. So for example, a hammer drill and a model aeroplane engine presented in exploded view, technical manual style, expose embedded concepts of masculinity. A meticulously reproduced chipboard Ming vase, complete with ashes, brings value systems to mind, and everyday objects like firewood, matchsticks and a pencil, carved with careful attention and consummate skill, are elevated from the mundane to the sublime.
Adrian offers no conclusions, only questions that grow more penetrating the more one searches for answers.
