Simone Westerwinter

Untitled (JA), 2002

Simone Westerwinter’s work involves a variety of media and deals with the structures and the ›relief‹ of contemporary consciousness. How does the patterned relief of our perception impinge on contemporary phenomena? And how is our thinking revealed from the phenomena themselves, in polarities of structure versus chaos, order versus disorder? Placed within these polarities, Westerwinter’s work induces the artwork and its viewer in a decision-making situation: the work of art as a decision sculpture. The ‘JA’ sewn crookedly on to the picture Ohne Titel (JA) [Untitled (YES)], 2002, an emphatically sloppy collage made up of porous, frayed canvases is so large and irrevocable that we cannot escape from it. We are suddenly committed to that JA as viewers and cannot get away from it without making a decision, and that decision could be NO. Yet, the term JA is a significantly positive sign; it provides an offer and the opportunity to come into contact with an opposite number. As the main motif of the work the JA additionally provides a literal commitment to art.