word swatches in the mouth shell, speech deeds, honey lyrics around three Siamese parking attendants, an eyelash-less freeloader and an iron bed.
scripture and step work
“For three months, she stayed in geographically unspecified places in a ‘moment of unavailability’. Friends and colleagues wondered about caveng’s mysterious disappearance, and the artist responded with an edition of letters. Only the postmark indicated the approximate region of the stays. Orientation in the maze of word swaps and through the perceptions in the respective country she was in is offered by the “Wortweiser”. The words themselves materialise in clusters from which the words hang and follow different categories: ‘Glanzworte’ (shiny words), ‘Wolken’ (clouds) and ‘Körperteile’ (body parts), but also ‘Reisen ans Ende der Welt’ (‘travels to the end of the world’) or ‘Küchenhermeneutik’ (kitchen hermeneutics), in which there are, for example, ‘Gabelwörter’ (fork words) or ‘Fensterschenkel’ (window thighs) in the category ‘Obszönitäten’ (‘obscenities’).”
“The room installation ‘The Trees Talked in Their Sleep’ invites visitors with an iron travel bed, a tree wallpaperdrawing and threads of literature to explore words, to slow down. The title is based on the poem “The Iron Bed” by the Georgian poet Otar Chiladze (1933-2009), which caveng approached with the help of digital translation programmes and an analogue dictionary.”
“Engraved in a wooden paneling, a typical one for the foot end of a bedstead, it states ‘iron the bed!’. A slightly absurd demand – especially in a showroom. But nothing is so absurd that it would not find its counterpart somewhere in life. ‘Iron the bed!’ had originally come about through a translation error from the Chiladze poem mentioned above. Rather by chance, caveng learned afterwards from a Georgian writer that her grandmother had warmed her bed with an iron during the civil war in Georgia.”
“Above the iron travel bed, the leaves of book pages – which could also be dried flowers, perhaps plant leaves – move on their apricot-coloured threads at the slightest breeze. Although we cannot decipher the language, the poetic constellation as well as the pictorial aesthetics of Georgian writing trigger thoughts, stories and dreams.”
The text excerpts are taken from the press release by Michaela Nolte. Translated by barbara caveng with the support of deepl translator
