Andrea Loefke - A Different World
Brooklyn-Based German Artist Discusses Her Work and Practice
German born artist Andrea Loefke lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, constructing conglomerates of material and form, working from innumerable materials, both decorative and everyday. These supplies overflow from the categorized shelves and bins of her studio. In fabricating these often vivid multiform assemblages, Loefke employs a myriad of techniques expressing ambiguous thoughts and sensations. These fairy-like worlds are complex structures incorporating multiple objects, colours and textures, resulting in what could be described as playful and mysterious landscapes, enticing the viewer into visual narrative journeys.
Part Six
PB: The viewer once projected themselves within the micro pathways of your work, that only insinuated macro worlds. As we have a tradition of not touching art – they traveled with the eye, a visual narrative journey amongst the groups and sub-groups of your environments and diagrammatic systems. The issue now seems to be one of scale; to incorporate the viewer 'within' as a 'performer' – allowing physical interplay like an explorer in a fairytale. We discussed the 'less conscious motivation to manipulate the responses' in the micro journeys through your work – is this interplay a more conscious motivation to instruct or guide?
AL: Scale has always played an important role in my work. In earlier pieces it was about an emotional responce to scale – putting oneself in relation in an imaginative way. In my recent installations scale can create an actual physical experience. And there is a great potential for me as the artist: My interest in the shift of scale lies in the ability to have an effect on the viewers body and the way he or she understands their position as a person within the work, as a very part of the work itself and in relation to the real world. To challenge through scale gives the possibility to talk directly to that person and to invite them to participate. Sometime it might allow entry and a relationship, and another time it might deny entry and we feel left out and off-balance – a wonderful conflict in my point of view. The potential is, that I can actually play with this new physical experience and manipulate it in different ways. What would happen if the actual physical experience was an experience of denial? An interesting issue I'd like to explore further.
PB: Your 'deer-stand' project; “The squirrels, hedgehogs and rabbits are indeed harmless…” appears to create a diallectic with the viewer; again incorporating the viewer as participant within the work, and at the same time playing with the notions of scale and perception. By elevating the viewer above the landscape of miniature creatures – asking them to traverse 'a miniscule safari' through binoculars; seems an intriguing mix of physical interaction and relates to the earlier journeys through narrative using the eye (mentioned previously). Yet the viewer is still placed physically and centrally within the narrative structure – is your primary intention that of forming a dialogue between the micro and macro elements present in the work and highlighting the ongoing nature of 'playful discovery'?
AL: This new piece is a modification of my initial “scaffolding platform/tree house idea” (unfortunately so far no space has lent itself to this project). At Michael Steinberg Gallery I decided to replace the bigger platform structure with a high chair, a deerstand, which is elevated eight feet above ground. This wooden structure can be climbed by visitors and after one has successfully overcome personal challenge and in some cases even fear to ascend the structure, this world above comfortably welcomes the participants with soft cushions in dazzling green, fanciful and whimsical.
While one resides on the deerstand, a pair of binoculars invites you to go on a discovery, exploring the detailed and pictorial world around. Here, the visitor is allowed to dip into a different world of magic and exploration – an interactive experience outside of normal every day and outside of normal adulthood. As I had described before, the participant is invited to imagine themselves back in childhood when still building forts and tree houses.
To be on a mission, the feeling of being in control, and the sensation of peeping are the main involvements that…yes, mark the ongoing nature of playful discovery. The effect of binoculars also enhances the “dipping into a different world”. One is not only discovering details that might not be otherwise visible but also zooms in, detached from the surrounding environment. The participant is suddenly in the middle of it all, at the core of events.
Read on to Part seven.
Back to part five
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