We are delighted to present two works by Alexej Meschtschanow, ‘Sitting in the dark’ (2012) and ‘Polsterstuhl Nr. 3’ (2013), for the 8th installment of our @ Home series, in the home our collector Rosemarie Schneck.

Alexej Meschtschanow’s works installed at Rosemarie Schneck’s apartment.

Alexej Meschtschanow examines the physical and aesthetic qualities of established social conventions through sculpture and installation. Studying our immediate social environments with an analytic and compassionate eye, he assembles found objects, derelict furniture, and archival photography. His work focuses on the imaginative potential and psychological depths involved in the construction of identities, compulsion toward self-realization, and the socially driven urge for optimization. His sculptural works interlock two communicative modes, the passive and the active. The end effect of his creative output culminates in figures of poetic melancholy, attempting to break out of the vicious cycles of Fordist, totalitarian, or fetishist forms of functionalism. 

Polsterstuhl Nr. 3, 2013, chair, lacquer, tubular steel, 87x61x56cm.

Meschtschanow’s works play on the consequences of miserable socio-political transparency and occasionally they appear to resemble vacuum-packed units of consistency verging on the implosive. The frameworks of welded tubular steel and clamps connect and fasten the individual components to one another to the extent of utter immobility. On the one hand, this reflects obstinacy, immovability, and conservatism while serving as an image of autonomy, connectedness, and solidarity on the other. 

Sitting in the dark, 2012, steel pipe, b/w-photography, glass, lacquer, electronics, 85,5x65x26cm.

Alexej Meschtschanow’s solo exhibition ‚Jacksonkill‚ is opening on JUN 24 @ Klemm’s.

Alexej Meschtschanow (b. 1973) lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the HGB Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, where he received his Master of Fine Arts in 2005. Recent exhibitions include: Bauhaus Sachsen, Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, DE (2019); Spuren im Raum, Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, DE (2018); Europa verlassen, mit Jana Müller und Felicitas Hoppe, Kunstverein Langenhagen, Langenhagen, DE (2017); Formen in der Dämmerung, Kunsthalle m3, Berlin, DE (2016); non profit / nutzlose Nutzbarkeiten jenseits von Nutzen, Kunstverein Friedrichshafen & Zeppelin Museum, Friedrichshafen, DE (2015); Liebe, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen, DE (2014) and six memos for the next …, Magazin4 – Bregenzer Kunstverein, Bregenz, AUT (2013). In 2009 Meschtschanow received a working fund from the Else-Heiliger-Fonds and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and in 2012 he was a resident at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles.