Umbigo, October 2021

In an apparent attempt to communicate through negation, sealing off access to the wrong statement each time, limiting the script without ever stating it, Jonas Roßmeißl uses a specific peacefulness to present a meticulous and critical work of investigation, whose greatest virtue is the delay it manages to provoke.

Despite the blatant political aspect, ‘Die Neue Statik’ (A new static), the artist’s first exhibition at Klemm’s as part of Gallery Weekend Discoveries, is the opposite of an exhibition-manifesto: rather than being the stage for direct references used to illustrate a statement or protest, it is the script for a space of provocation and iconoclasm, activated above all by what is not allowed – that is, through the force of sealing.

The pieces presented – televisions or packaging – are mostly familiar and relatable, removed from their functional space through small transformations that render them useless. While stressing the uselessness of these objects, however, Roßmeißl ensures that the loss of functionality does not make them unrecognizable. This familiarity is crucial to achieving the intended seal, since this is what triggers closer proximity.

Among clean ruins, partially decomposed sculptures, maggots, traces of warehouses and mobile phones, the provocation is reinforced by the way Roßmeißl is also involved in the curation, defining the way – in this case, the iconoclastic tone – through which the elements come together. In this regard, not only was the lighting designed and set up by the artist, but two additional devices were also installed in the gallery: one is responsible for blocking the mobile network and the other distorts the image whenever someone tries to take a picture.

Transporting the work into the spectator’s field, blocking the immediate sharing and sealing the approach with a languid touch, the pieces are delivered to a new place. In this case, a simple one that exhausts its inherently useless character, leaving only criticism intact – not the one which the artist directly enunciates, but the one which the artist helps to enunciate. Deep down, the sentence is also a game that only reveals itself at the end.

Originally written in Portuguese. Translated and published by Umbigo