In her first solo exhibition at Marion Scharmann’s gallery, Anja Ciupka (*1975) shows drawings, installations as well as videos. In a subtle yet highly aesthetic way the artist’s austere, minimalist works reflect on sociological connections.
 
»butterfly effect« comprises of shining silver boules, scattered across the gallery floor. The material aesthetic makes the work both effective and provides a theme for the appropriation of space – not least through the sound generated by the rolling boules. At the same time, the boules’ interaction is reminiscent of a sociogram, for they lie either alone or in groups and can be kicked and displaced by the viewer. Their displacements form invisible lines in space, positioning them in new contexts, creating new groupings. On opening night the boules’ combination could be reflective of the visitors attending the opening, standing alone or in constantly forming new groups in front of a work looking. The work can furthermore stand for the interaction of any individual. Why does boule A stop directly next to boule B? As in life, various factors are responsible for the interference into the constellation of a relationship and many of these factors cannot be measured. Through the visitor’s potential interference the exterior influence in the constellation of the relationship is taken into account and suddenly big questions have to be confronted. Do we act independently or is everything predetermined?
Anja Ciupka has given this work the title »butterfly effect«, referring to a term from the theory of chaos – how the wing beat of a butterfly kilometers away can influence our lives.

The artist has bought all boules at auction from ebay. Every boule can tell its own story, as the traces of usages on the individual balls indicate.
»butterfly effect« captivates – as most of the artist’s works – through a minimalist austerity that provides a lot of space for reflection, emanating at the same time something light and playful.

While »butterfly effect« focuses the attention on the entirety created by the interaction of uncertain individuals, the text work »Me« zooms in on the individual and describes its particular relationships. The protagonist »Me« forms relationships to various people in ever changing constellations.
Seemingly unemotional personal relationships are here formulated by cool itemization in written form. At the same time, »Me« is reminiscent of a poem that in turn creates a cosmos with a few words, often a very emotional one. Through numerous combinations, »Me« also unfolds an endless narrative, nourishing the viewer’s desire to look into the artist’s soul through the art while not fully satisfying that desire. Did biographical material enter into the work or do the networks of interaction originate from the artist’s imagination?
Although this remains open, Anja Ciupka reflects her own position as an artist in the art world in this and many other works. To position the »Me« into a context is as important to an artist as is his/her network.

In the drawings »me ground plan« Anja Ciupka provides an architectural space for some relationship constellations described in »Me«. A ground plan visualizes cohabitation and places people into spatial constellations.
The appropriation of space manifest in »butterfly effect«, surfaces also in these drawings. A person is assigned a space that is at the same time interconnected with other peoples’ spaces.

In the video »Attic Evidence« space is appropriated by looking – like a detective, the viewer receives clues about a space, but they are not sufficient to be able to visualize the space completely. The space becomes an image, an ornament, and yet the viewer has to complete the space in his/her own thought process.

(Translated by Uta Hoffmann)