Inventory

Kasper Andreasen & Tine Melzer
2007–2008

Published as INVENTORY: Kasper Andreasen & Tine Melzer, Johan Deumens Gallery, NL, ISBN 978-90-73974-07-4. Available for purchase at: www.markpezinger.de/andreasen.html#4

Inventory focuses on a collection of everyday objects made by the artists Kasper Andreasen and Tine Melzer. It aims to address the relation between literal and metaphorical interpretations of objects by investigating the tactile essence of things.

Works included in Inventory:

Figure
Thing Chose Ding Cosa
On Parle Francais, We Speak English, Man Spricht Deutsch, Se Habla Español
Deliberation
Sixteen things
Evidence
When in doubt – Tine Melzer
The Arctic Fox – Kasper Andreasen

Our memories of objects reverberate between real and represented matter. In Inventory Andreasen and Melzer investigate the relationship between actual and drawn things. They collected and inventoried things surrounding them: in the kitchen, on the work-desk, in the bathroom, in drawers and cupboards. Inventory consists of twelve works, which this publication tries to unite. Additional contributions allude to signs and symbols, metaphors and language, and the interrelation between words and things. The set of artists’ books Thing Chose Ding Cosa is the core work within Inventory. The books are a treasury of everyday objects – albums that index the physical presence of things. One by one, each item — a hammer, a cup, a pencil, a paper clip, a cable, a whisk, etc. — was placed on a page and its outline drawn with a marker. How does circumscribing a three-dimensional object relate to procedures of mapping and naming? This way of drawing is a mode of tracing; these outlines are on the edge of abstract lines and language. The compilation of these drawings as an inventory of outlines charts a nonverbal vocabulary of signs — figures that induce the viewer to recall the form, usage and function of the objects via tactile and visual memories. ‘We are intrigued by the tension between an ideal concept, the way we name things, and their materiality and history. This publication reflects us as users in the “company of objects” (Stokhof): the value of things as a childlike ode to their presence.’

Essays: ‘Between Word and Thing’ by Ilse van Rijn; ‘The Company of Objects’ by Martin Stokhof.

Contributions: Louis Lüthi.

Translation: Lynn George.

Design: Louis Lüthi.

Printing: Veenman drukkers.

Photos: Mathias Zuppiger, Kasper Andreasen