Thomas Moecker, Sebastian Gögel, Christoph Ruckhäberle
5000 miles away

November 15, 2019 to January 5, 2020

Ampersand is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Thomas Moecker, Sebastian Gögel and Christoph Ruckhäberle. When traversing the globe in a straight line from Portland to Leipzig, one will travel approximately 5000 miles, hence the literal though somewhat whimsical exhibition title. It’s in Leipzig where the artists work as friends and occasional collaborators in nearly adjacent studios. Emphasis, then, is partly on a particular location, a locus of making, studio spaces in a German city where, as Christoph notes, they share a common focus on constructing rather than depicting, production instead of reproduction. From our point of view, the exhibition attempts to bridge the distance between the creative moment in the studio and the often sterile experience of viewing art in the context of a gallery. The works on paper clipped to our walls represent a process of making that is both analytic and synthetic, focused and fun. They are not mere sketches to be discarded, nor are they the large paintings on canvas and sculptures that the artists exhibit in other contexts. They are, instead, a point in between that records a state of active inquiry—works the artists take pleasure in while making and, as intended, also give us joy in viewing and even owning. When viewed in series, for instance, Ruckhäberle's gouache paintings almost read like a game, fragments of human figures divided into rectangles that ask for reassembly—one monumental work in his mind cut up and reconfigured in an approximation of itself. Moecker’s series of 13 paperworks, collectively titled Portland Blätter, create a new order of visual fragments he has perceived within urban space, excerpts and hints of architecture and spatial sculpture. The paintings transcribe only the essence of forms he has seen, underscoring the fleeting nature of perception in his attempt to record, through painting and sculpture, something that is ultimately infallible. The act of recording is also at play in Sebastian’s portrait series, a kind of universal character study implying an image of society as a whole. The faces, however, are fictional, painted from a point of view somewhere between memory and imagination. Not one person, but a typological abstraction of all people, by degrees familiar and grotesque. It is, he says, a form of constant search, the development of understanding.

5000 miles away continues our ongoing collaboration with Christoph Ruckhäberle, both in offering the books he publishes through his imprint, Lubok Verlag, and exhibiting his artwork. Past exhibitions at Ampersand include Chaos Hat, Behind the Green Door, NEO - NOIR and Paradise Lost. We are thrilled this new exhibition also includes Sebastian Gögel and Thomas Moecker, whose work we have long admired. We encouraged you to view their respective websites, here and here.