Virtual 5: Steve Johnson - What is seen and what is made
01. September - 31. October 2016

Blick in die Ausstellung
Bronze equestrian statue, His Royal Highness George, Duke of Cambridge, Whitehall, London SW1.


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Blick in die Ausstellung

Blick in die Ausstellung

Virtual 5: Steve Johnson - What is seen and what is made

A guiding principle in Steve Johnson's work over three decades has been the idea of architecture as metaphor. Johnson observes the urban landscpae with its landmarks, different types of building and transport networks and makes art from these observations.

Looking is one thing; creating art is something entirely different.

The entire process involves recording what's out there on the street or inside a building and then reconstituting that information into metaphorical meaning. These changes are often referred to as "artistic license". Johnson prefers to call it "concretizing the mind".

In his case the recorded research is often photographic and the resulting sculpture usually created by hand (his hands) with the aid of modern workshop technologies.

This virtual exhibition is an opportunity to show the difference between the concrete world as a stimulus or reference point compared with the finished works of art.

Translating everyday experience into visual expression can be one of the roles of a visual artist. Translating really is where art resides in today's world where anyone who owns a phone is a photographer.

Translating involves artifice, trickery, exaggeration, addition and erasure and at turns can be dramatic, witty, shocking, political and melancholic. It can embody any number of abstract thoughts. In Johnson's case, what is made is never what is seen in the actual world. The translation can sometimes be straightforward, minimal and easily understood. It can also be so oblique as to confound easy explanation or understanding.

Editing out and hybridising data from lots of research photos demonstrates one kind of translation. It also illustrates subjective decision making. This method doesn't create a replica of a real place or become an architectural model to be built out of bricks at some point in the future.

Johnson's works are psychological models in three dimensions. You could call it the difference between an urban landscape and a mindscape. Who is to say which is more real?

The artist would like to thank Peter Cattrell, Marius Domkus, Martin Pfahler, Stephen Robson and Ulrike Kutschera for their photographic assistance in realizing Virtual 5.