Catriona Jeffries

Rochelle Goldberg's sculptures and installations ask how we can cross the assumed boundaries between living beings and objects. In her work, the material and conceptual distinctions between natural systems and the built environment collapse, synthesize, and re-form.

For her exhibition Intralocutors: Click, Rochelle Goldberg creates an installation reminiscent of an in-process archaeological excavation. However, the figurative elements made of bronze and other materials scattered around the room are closer to typical pin-up figures of the 1950s than early historical artifacts. The apparent combination of various moments in time raises questions about the evidential value and authority of historical objects and relics. How does an object transform from a mere relic into a valuable historical artifact, and what role do the materials used play? When does a depiction of the human body transform from an erotic representation into a historically valuable piece of art, and does it make a difference whose body is depicted?

The works do not provide clear-cut answers but invite us to reconsider our preconceptions of the value or worthlessness of certain materials. The installation can be explored like an archaeological expedition or like the scene of a crime. In both cases, Goldberg's sculptures seem to refer to events of the past. Depending on one's own associations with the forms suggested by Goldberg, each viewer creates their own notion of the past from the exhibited objects, a notion of the past from which these objects might have remained.

Kunsthalle Lingen thanks the Lower Saxony Foundation for the generous support of the exhibition as well as the state of Lower Saxony, the district of Emsland, the city of Lingen (Ems), and the Heinrich Kampmann Cultural Foundation.

Documentation by Roman Mensing.