Paper Works
The Suspension
a cycle of acrylic works on packing paper, 70 x 100
cm and 46 x 55 cm, 1996-97
Following an interview with Ute Pleuger, Barbara Straka, noted German art
critic, wrote the following for Pleuger's most recent catalog, published
for her exhibit in Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany, in October of 1997:
"Ute Pleuger's cycle, The Suspension, takes
its place at the close of a more than four hundred year tradition of landscape
pictures, a genre which began in European painting at the beginning of
the 16th century, and the irretrievable deconstruction of which is taking
place step by step in the 20th century.
In the frugality of its motives, The Suspension
opens up contemplative spaces for thought; spaces which demand a high level
of concentration and a willingness for involvement on the part of the observer
seeking to enter them, for in great density they conceal existential questions
concerning perception, image, space, reality and virtuality in today's
art, but also concerning The Suspension of the same.
Like Kafka, Ute Pleuger plays with the illusionary character
of art by taking ad absurdum not only a belief in its mimetic task of portrayal,
but also the principle of art for art's sake. With the cycle, The Suspension,
she succeeds in the extraordinary tightrope walk of simultaneously presenting
art as pure material and pure illusion. Seen in this light, the images
depict "nature" - in the sense that they certainly demonstrate the way
"in which the world is seen by our contemporaries" (Beat Wyss, Mythologie
der Aufklaerung, 1983)
