1994 - 1995
SIGNETIC DRAWING – In 1994, Michael Riedel designed a signet with which to sign his artworks. Owing to the fact that, at the age of twenty-two, he did not yet have any appreciable works of art to show for himself, the signet had no function to fulfill. However, it functions as a designation of non-existing artworks, which it marks as blank spaces. Taking this state of possibility as a point of departure, the artist executed a work that realizes the designation of the work as the work itself – the Signetic Drawing.
The work complex, which consists of nearly a thousand drawings in the form of 61 sheets, 36 wax books, numerous ancillary drawings and blank material, is a work synthesis that, composed of operations, offers the theoretical possibility of the endless drawing of drawings. With the signet as their starting point, the drawings are based on the interplay between a view from above and four respective views of the structural body. As a process of self-creation, the autopoeisis that takes place here consists in every view potentially being capable of being perceived as a view from above, from which further views can be drawn, which then, perceived as views from above, are the basis for new views, and so forth. The individual steps of the self-reproducing forms trigger an autodynamic process that confronts the viewers – of which the artist is one – with an overwhelming supply of forms.
The question arises as to how the process will continue. The fact that it will continue is guaranteed by the as-yet-undrawn drawings in the form of blank sheets, which are likewise a part of the work. They bring about the operative conclusion of the Signetic Drawing system. In that the undrawn drawings are included, a potentially possible work is realized.
Download the exhibition catalogue as a PDF file: SIGNETISCHE ZEICHNUNG 1994–95 (2019)
Installation view „Michael Riedel – Graphic Art as Event“, Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt/M., 2018
Collection Städel Museum Frankfurt/M.
Photocopy
63.4 × 88.5 cm
Installation view „Michael Riedel – Graphic Art as Event“, Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt/M., 2018
Collection Städel Museum Frankfurt/M.