Moeller Fine Art Berlin is pleased to exhibit La Bibliotheque by Eric Fonteneau (French, b. 1954) and The Labyrinth by Hubertus Gojowcyzk (German, b. 1943). Presenting two large scale installations by each artist, the exhibition will explore the affinities of the library and the labyrinth; whereas Gojowcyzk will construct a literal labyrinth from the pages of books, Fonteneau uses charcoal rubbings of book bindings to create "La Bibliotheque," a library of elusive books. Together, these large-scale installations reinterpret the possibilities of the book as an aesthetic object.
Eric Fonteneau's recent work centers largely on real and imagined journeys, using art to record what he sees and explore what he remembers. La Bibliotheque is an invented library made from the rubbings of books' spines (frottage), and is composed of volumes that the artist saw around the world. Like a real library, the rubbed books can be rearranged in space, and as such serve as constantly evolving stockpiles of images and associations. Despite its physicality, "La Bibliotheque" has a certain elegiac tone about it, as the drawings that the viewer perceives are only souvenirs of objects that were once real.
Fonteneau, who lives and works in Nantes, was born in Cholet, Britanny in 1954. After completing his studies at the Université de la Haute-Bretagne in Rennes, Fonteneau was invited to teach at his alma mater. He also became an art critic for magazines such as Art Vivant and Axe Sud. Since 1985, international corporations, educational institutions, public libraries, and town halls, including the Mairie de Paris and the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, have commissioned the artist to create a number of works. In 2006, Moeller Fine Art presented an installation at Art Basel Miami Beach entitled Un cabinet de dessin. Last year Fonteneau had two shows at Atelier Bastille in Nantes and later this year the artist will be represented at the International Forum in Tokyo with Villes de Jean Sebastien Bach.
Hubertus Gojowczyk has for many years focused on books as the principle motif and medium of his work. His Book-Objects transform the intellectual into the physical using alternately witty, poetic, playful, and satirical means. Among these is a series of works which the artist calls Labyrinths, created using the pages of a book as a visual maze through which the viewer can wander. Last year, this series was included in Gutenberglabyrinth, a retrospective of the artist's work at the Deutsche Nationalbibliotek in Frankfurt am Main. In the artist's own words, "The labyrinth is an ancient motif signifying trial and error, for without error the labyrinth could not be. Error is a human characteristic, the longing for a clear way, a new path, and to try what is possible."
Hubertus Gojowczyk was born in 1943 in the German state of Silesia (modern Poland). From 1967 to 1971, he studied at the Art Academy of Dusseldorf under Joseph Beuys and Dieter Roth. In addition to regular exhibitions at Moeller Fine Art New York--Berlin, Gojowczyk participated in Kassel's Documenta 5 and Documenta 6 (1975, 1977). The artist's first US retrospective, The Book As Object, was held at Moeller Fine Art in 2005, followed by a major exhibition at the Deutsche Nationalbibliotek in Frankfurt in 2008.
