The Age of Neptune

Hetjens – Deutsches Keramikmuseum, Düsseldorf
11 March – 18 June 2017

By chance, the long-forgotten œuvre of the artist Jan Usinger (1916–1984) was discovered in 2012 at the Paul Clemen Museum of the Institute of Art History at the University of Bonn. Matthias Wollgast encountered this body of work while preparing an exhibition there, and this moment decisively shaped the exhibition's development. His interest in his forgotten colleague is rooted in "iconographic elective affinities", which all but demand a playful engagement with art history and the history of art. At the same time, both artists evoke various methods of image comparison and comparative seeing.

At first glance, the collages of the late Jan Usinger bring together seemingly dissimilar subjects: female bodies in swimwear, mostly without faces and bodies, are juxtaposed with vases from different periods. One part of the exhibition is devoted to these works on paper and shows them together with ceramics from the collection of the Hetjens – German Ceramics Museum. The selection of vases is based on formal correspondences, and also on deliberate contrasts and playful extensions of the collages' subjects. Alongside the works and vases, a selection of personal documents from Usinger's estate is also on display.

In contrast, Wollgast presents works that seem to oscillate between art objects and cult objects. By completely encasing the exhibition space in panelling, he both conceals and reveals its structure. Alongside his cameraless photographs, the artist places plastinated swimwear in this one-off installation. The concealment of a structure is transformed into its disclosure. As with the ceramics, the boundaries between function and aesthetics become blurred in both their meaning and their interpretation.

In a dichotomous staging, MATTHIAS WOLLGAST presents the life and work of JAN USINGER alongside his own most recent work, creating a new unity in the process.