Rodney Graham Untitled (no. 1-12), 2014 Ink and watercolour on paper Each: 37,7 x 27,5 cm Unique “Magic is the transformation of the Self as a void in the duration of what remains.” KÜCHENZAUBER / KITCHEN MAGIC, the new book by Rüdiger Schöttle, ignites a flame on the kitchen stove with short, concise conceptualizations. The kitchen serves these aphorisms as a metaphor and a space for Schöttle’s reflections on temporality, perception, and the link between subject and object. The book is complemented by 12 color drawings by the Canadian artist Rodney Graham. He assumes the role of the “pipe cleaner artist” – a fictional character from the 1960s who explores the expressive qualities of pipe cleaners. Rodney Graham: “I tried to respond to Rüdiger’s very abstract text in the persona of the ‘pipe cleaner artist,’ an imaginary artist working in the 1960s, who explores the expressive potential of bent, twisted, paint-dipped pipe cleaners (somewhat in the tradition of Cocteau, who, in a photograph by Man Ray, is seen fabricating a pipe cleaner head – such as the one seen in Blood of a Poet). I did two series of drawings, one in black and white, and executed with pipe cleaners dipped in India ink, and a second series in color executed with pipe cleaners as well as traditional brushes. Both Kitchen Magic series attempt to find a resonance with Rüdiger’s text by evoking unconscious images of transformation through an essentially automatist approach.”
