18/03/18 – 22/04/18 ‘Half a life’, SEA Foundation, Tilburg (NL)
Solo exhibition with Timotheus Tomicek, curated by Eline Kersten
In 1914, the composer Arnold Schoenberg held the view that a formation of coloured clouds against a blue sky was the sign of an upcoming catastrophe. More than one hundred years later, coloured cloud formations have become the symbol of disembodied power: they announce imminent disaster. With this realisation, Schoenberg’s gloomy interpretation has inevitably become a part of everyday life.
‘Half a life’ is a solo show by Austrian artist Timotheus Tomicek about the invisibility of power. It takes the mathematical concept t1⁄2 as a way to understand the world as a whole. For the past few months, Tomicek has produced new works as an artistic response to the concept of half-life. Aiming to visualise the immaterial, the works exceed measurements of time and place, and examine the fragmented reality of both elements.
Stemming from old Greek philosophy, Tomicek furthermore plays with the idea that every part needs a counterpart. In his work he implies the thought that complementation between two parts are necessary in order to create a unifying whole. In this sense, one could never obtain harmony without tension – just like there exists no day without night.
He asks himself questions such as how can we understand our human life in relation to the time ticking away? And what does it mean to document that which we cannot literally see? By introducing conflicting notions of time and spatiality, Tomicek offers insight into the crisis of linear time structures.
