Performance
Materialization; canvas, acrylic paint, brushes, metal construction, motors, pumps, electronic devices, plastic foil; dimensions variable
The work of Daniel Knorr readdresses historical, sociopolitical, economic, and biopolitical issues within the art context, taking conceptual and often participatory approaches. In Athens, for Documenta 14 (2017), Knorr acted as a contemporary archeologist collecting objects left on the city’s streets, which were subsequently pressed into books before the eyes of the audience. In Kassel, some months later, he had white smoke rise from the Zwehrenturm tower for the work Expiration Movement. In 2013, Knorr began the ‘Depression Elevations’ series, for which he creates beautiful transparent-colored wall sculptures from casts of potholes. In Laundry, assembled canvases in the shape of cars have been painted by a modified car wash, transforming the fetishistic moment of industrial car washing into the creative and sensual materialization of an artistic practice. The viewer becomes witness to a happening, in which the mechanical application of paint to the car-canvases evokes associations with historic and contemporary painting.