Cerith Wyn Evans „...later on they are in a garden...“

22
But these irritations lead to gentle breaks that open various entries for viewers. The
carefully chosen words trigger a chain of impulses. Unavoidably, each viewer has his /
her own quite personal associations that are awakened. Where the work ends and the
sentences remain incomplete, a bond is created to the viewer whose own reality consummates
the aesthetic event.
The context of the sacred interior of Sankt Peter’s is testimony to how open and transformable
<strong>Evans</strong>’ work is. The most varied of references are the result, depending on the
interest and the relationship of the individual viewers to this interior. With the picture
of a couple in a garden in mind, some think of the description in Genesis of Adam and
Eve in Eden. Others perhaps think of similar scenes from literature and films or draw
references from their own memories. The artist impressively applies written texts in
places whose potential allows the necessary freedom. Thus the pillars of the church
naves turn into tree trunks, the arches and vaults to canopies of leaves and the church
interior to a clearing in a forest. Anyone who lets him / herself fall captive, will with
gentle hands be caught up in the sweetest fantasy. And these are only the first lines…
The relationship of man and nature is given a further dimension in the juxtaposition
with a giant sequoia and, in the end, touches on one of the most elementary questions
of humanity: “Where have we come from?” But all does not happen explicitly. There
are fleeting stimuli that leave behind long-lasting thoughts, but there is no interpretation
that insists or solidifies.
Also at this point, the two small, ceaselessly rotating fig trees provide a not insignificant
role. By means of this playful gesture that <strong>Cerith</strong> <strong>Wyn</strong> <strong>Evans</strong> implements in
many of his exhibitions and that never explicitly alludes to the content of the text,
words lose their earnestness. The plants strike up a relationship with the neon and
the viewer while they simultaneously turn around themselves. On the one hand a
game, on the other hand irony, yet on the level of form and content, the plants hold the
complex together. They create the tie-in to the viewer and prevent the text from slipping
into a sphere of dry intellectuality.
In the form of a staged approach to his exhibitions, <strong>Evans</strong> manages very early to
hook the viewer into an open dialogue; the tour through the city, the streets and back
alleys are part of the experience of the work. Helping himself to the vocabulary of the
past, he sets ideas into a relationship with other artworks, objects and places. So that
something new can emerge, the viewer must, initially at least, overlook the historicality
of the language, which is why the artist does not list sources.
It is first and foremost not about who originally penned the sentences but about what
they can still move in us. To the artist, this is much more than only about what you
see and what you read. As Mark Cousins wrote, it is about the processes that can
be set in motion independently by the act of reading. Another neon text puts it in a
nutshell: “Permit yourself to drift from what you are reading at this very moment into
another situation... Imagine a situation that, in all likelihood, you’ve never been in.”
The constellations produced by the artist open up a large number of doors and do not
allow a predefined result. However they perhaps allow the delightful idea that visitors
will actually not finish reading the text, but prematurely in their mind take up what
they find and run with it.
The overwhelming sensitivity with which <strong>Cerith</strong> <strong>Wyn</strong> <strong>Evans</strong> approaches each individual
exhibition situation makes him into more than just a welcome guest at Sankt
Peter’s. That this is not just said as a pleasantry could be experienced at the opening
on May 3rd. An atmosphere of curiosity, happy anticipation, respect, mutual esteem,
friendship and perhaps also a little love wrapped the guests in enchantment – at least
for one fleeting but magical moment.
Clemens Ottenhausen / Translation: Jeanne Haunschild
23