MANUEL BURGENER

Thibaut Verhoeven, Curator S.M.A.K in Gent about Manuel Burgener, 2013

Within the contemporary discourse on sculpture and art in general, the sculptures, assemblages and photograms of the Swiss artist Manuel Burgener (b. Bern, 1978) occupy a unique, hybrid position. While many sculptors of his generation are searching for a relevant and individual position with regard to sculpture, Burgener questions this
position in itself, and researches it in an almost emotional manner, from which he examines this sculptural position with all its advantages, disadvantages, flaws and merits.

Using very basic, everyday materials such as wood, glass, photographic paper and found objects, Manuel Burgener constantly questions his posi- tion as a sculptor, which he considers as completely fluid. Burgener’s main artistic goal in this fluid situation lies in constantly attempting to reach a sculptural state of ‘being in balance’. Burgener
submits every sculpture, whether it is an assemblage, a photogram or a slightly modified found object, to a constant process of nuancing by negotiation between himself and the  diverse sculptural possibilities that these things could possess. Although the photograms could be seen as sculptural objects, they occupy a slightly different position within Burgener’s artistic practice, because the process behind them can only be partly ‘controlled’ and thus negotiated by the artist; this is due to the material aspect of the photogram: natural light on photographic paper layered with other ‘sculptural’ materials. Or, to put it differently: in the case of the photograms the natural light itself becomes the third ‘negotiating part’ in the sculptural negotiation process alongside the artist and the material.
In any case, it is because of this everlasting process of sculptural negotiation that Burgener’s works find themselves constantly in a ‘twilight zone’, with an ‘in-between status’. In this sense his sculptures could be viewed as neither sculptures, nor mere material. As an interpretative consequence, one could even say that they are neither art, nor mere object, or, from the viewpoint of an exhibition, neither presented, nor merely placed. They are sculptural ‘in-between’ things, which are always based on Burgener’s individual and very open feeling for signification. In this sense all his ‘sculptures’ are also constantly in movement for the viewer’s interpretation and perception, and are thus under negotiation.

This hybrid ‘in-between’ position forms the starting point for Manuel Burgener’s solo presentation in the ‘KunstNu’ room at S.M.A.K. This particular space itself possesses all the properties of a ‘twilight zone’. It’s neither an exhibition space, nor a mere passing corridor, it has neither end nor beginning, is situated between two staircases and doesn’t even have its own storey. Taking these peculiar architectural qualities – or flaws – as a basis, Manuel Burgener, together with his ‘in-between’ sculptures, commits  himself to a very precarious architectural and sculptural negotiation process, which aims to approach and accentuate the balance of the in-between status between space and sculpture. Because of the inherently fluid nature of this in-between status, and the constant shuffling, tacking and sculptural negotiation within it, this highly desired balance sometimes seems paradoxically way out of balance...

In this sense, one could consider Manuel Burgener’s (in-between) sculptural practice as most comparable with the act of walking. Indeed, if viewed as one overarching, fluid movement, a body is perfectly in balance when it walks. At the same time, at every separate moment during this walk, the body is completely out of balance... Actually, walking could be considered as the constant sculptural negotiation of the human body between many different states of instability, done in such a fluid manner that it simultaneously compensates for this instability so perfectly that it achieves the exact opposite: the ultimate (fluid) stability.