Fuzzy - Painting in the exhibition space

The colour has left the boundaries of the classical image carrier and captures the exhibition space. Coloured silicone modules, partly flat, partly corporeal are loosely distributed in the room. Some modules even climb up the wall. Frank Piasta's floor and wall works in the series "fuzzy" might incisively be called "painting in the exhibition space."

Painting, which is dependent on the exhibition space and which, in turn, changes its function and effect - the showroom becomes the image carrier. The word "fuzzy" denotes three things. Firstly, masses of colour running into each other within the individual modules. Then there is the lack of a clearly defined boundary of the ground-and space work - it begs the question: Where does the artwork end and where does the exhibition space begin? At the same time "fuzzy" occupies an intermediate state between painting and sculpture, between the virtual and the material. It is this repeatedly appearing phenomenon of blurring, which particularly engenders the fascination with fuzzy.

For some time now Frank Piasta has been working with the unusual material silicone - a material that is more commonly associated with crafts and plastic surgery than with the realm of art. Only in recent years has silicone dyed with coloured pigments left the image carrier. Since 2007 the artist has repeatedly created new location-based fuzzy installations. While the shows in Dusseldorf and Bonn exhibited circular silicone areas, which were distributed side by side and one above the other on the floor, partially reminiscent of elements of pointillist painting, the works exhibited in Cologne, Erfurt and Ingolstadt were dominated by dwarf-like silicon clusters.

The main focus of the window work shown in Freiburg is on the transparency of the silicone. When light shines through the blue-violet coloured rectangular areas of colour and the orange-brown oval silicone blobs, it seems as if the colour hovers between the window frame and the grille. Lightness and immateriality of colour become the main topic.

Piasta makes use of the materiality and plasticity of the silicone when he doesn't smooth out the mass of colour on the surface with the spatula, but creates three-dimensional blobs, which sometimes consist of several layers of different colours. The physicality of the individual modules also appeals to the physicality of the viewer.

With its rubbery, transparent appearance and its various fields of application, silicone is a material, which can induce varying, sometimes conflicting feelings. Especially the pastel-coloured silicone modules can cause positive associations with candy or with childhood in general. The attractive effect can be so strong that the recipient feels the desire to touch the silicone elements. However, the modules can also have a repellent and disgusting effect caused by their particular materiality. If you actually were to touch the silicone elements, you would simultaneously feel a hard and a soft rubber-like mass.

These ambivalent material properties with regard to their effect and haptics are also clearly visible externally. Sometimes the silicone surfaces gleam, sometimes they appear dull and matt. No matter what associations are triggered when looking at fuzzy, the visitor to the exhibition will probably never remain detached. It is precisely this effect which makes the various floor and wall works by Frank Piasta so exciting.

Before Frank Piasta composes a new fuzzy work and installs it in a location, he takes a close look at the available space including the floor. The nature and the requirements of the exhibition space determine the appearance of each new fuzzy installation. Based on a whole set of different module boxes - applying mostly either rectangular or circular areas or clusters, monochrome or multicoloured elements - he develops a new composition and determines the approximate number of each element. However, only when actively installing the modules, does Piasta create the exact shape of his work of art.

Over the years, Piasta has acquired a module system, which is well differentiated in colour and form. The selection ranges from monochrome, fiery red dwarfs to tri-coloured pink-purple-light green clusters and bright pink applications. Each individual module is available in large numbers. This modular system enables him too react to very different spatial situations, regardless of room size and floor conditions. Piasta once applied his art to the carpeted room of a hotel in Bonn, which was about to be demolished, using circular silicon elements thereby creating a kind of pointillist painting.

Whereas with two-dimensional painting it is often sufficient to look at the work from a single position, when viewing "fuzzy" it is recommended to vew it from several angles, and even take a bird's eye view as is possible in the Museum of Concrete Art in Ingolstadt. Viewed from above, the three-dimensionality of fuzzy is reduced in favour of a flat, pictorial appearance. The floor and space work turns into a three-dimensional image, floor and wall become the image carrier. In this the influence of Piasta's art studies and in particular the influence of his teacher Kuno Gonschior are apparent. Gonschior taught him to emphasize the materiality of paint and to experiment with unusual coloured matter.

If, however, the viewer takes an angled or bottom-up view, the composition seems more like a three-dimensional relief. The diminutive silicone modules turn into gigantic silicone mountains, an entire landscape seems to rise before the eye of the viewer.

The space surrounding the colour spots is always taken into consideration when viewing a fuzzy installation and thus becomes an integral part of each work. Photographs of fuzzy installations reflect this aspect very well. Apart from silicon modules floors, walls and corners and edges of rooms are always in the field of vision. This is particularly noticeable when the floor and the wall are not smooth and homogeneous, but consist of old, uneven floorboards and peeling plaster, as in the "Forum of Concrete Art" in Erfurt, or if the silicone elements are installed on a rough brick wall, as in the Museum of Concrete Art in Ingolstadt.

Frank Piasta's fuzzy floor and wall works are determined by the ambivalence of the coloured silicone material, the particular colour, shape and arrangement of colour spots, splatters and accumulations as well as the room in which it is installed. Hence, no two works are alike. One should always expect with anticipation which new and startling effect Frank Piasta may conjure up from the material at the next fuzzy constellation and how yet another room reacts to coloured silicon modules.

Miriam Müller, 2012