The unexpected can occur as long as it follows the logic of things.

DEUTSCH

The unexpected can occur as long as it follows the logic of things.
Mareike Jacobi
June 10 - July 3, 2021 

Vernissage⎢Thurs. June. 10, 18 - 22 hr
Artist Talk⎢ Sun. June 20, 15 - 16 hr  

Watch Online Artist Talk >>HERE<<

Mareike Jacobi explores the possibilities she finds within self-limitation, asking herself what is actually more confining–the framework she has narrowly defined or, even the limits of her own imagination?

Jacobi's graphic works are based on an aleatory form-finding process: using a complex set of rules, the artist defines intersections in a grid by using a die. From this basis she creates variations of geometric patterns. It is an interaction of chance, conscious decisions, and unconscious preferences. Mareike Jacobi's serial work resembles a line of thought that takes different directions and yet finds its way back to the starting point. Patterns are repeated, modified, developed further–sometimes translated into objects or installations, revealing references to related contexts such as play, architecture, or ornament.

The drawings and objects on view in the exhibition The Unexpected Can Occur as Long as It Follows the Logic of Things are based on patterns that can also already be found in the artist's book Pattern Book. In the exhibited drawings, the artist adds at least one more rule to the set of rules for generating these patterns. The titles of these works refer to the supplemented rules: Bei ungeraden Zahlen die Form im Feld schwarz malen or Bei einer 6 oder 5 bleibt das Feld frei. In the installation Spontane Unordnung the artist translates shapes from a two-dimensional drawing into three-dimensional objects–Flummis, which due to their different angles and surfaces can jump in different directions and may be used by the visitors of the exhibition. The work o.T. (Schiebepuzzle) also actively involves the visitors of the exhibition: by shifting the individual picture elements, new form contexts are created again and again. Is there a correct solution or are all outcomes of equal value?

The ability to recognize patterns is part of the basic cognitive equipment of humans. Jacobi is interested in the possibilities in this process–the moments in which a decision could turn out one way or the other.

einBuch # 19 

Pattern Book
Mareike Jacobi

Revolver Publishing, 2020

18x18cm, 158 pages; German/English
Text: Elisabeth Pichler

*There is a special edition with Flummis on the occasion of the exhibition.

The Pattern Book is a central work in Mareike Jacobi's art practice. In sequences similar to a flip book, the artist arranges variations of geometric patterns into a book. The basis of these patterns is an aleatoric principle of form-finding developed by the artist herself. Changes of direction or the coloring of surfaces can lead to new interpretations of the images. The Pattern Book is a compilation of the first drawings Mareike Jacobi made using her own form-finding process. It therefore represents an important reference for the artist's serial work.

Mareike Jacobi

Mareike Jacobi makes drawings. She creates her works with an aleatory form-finding process. Following predefined rules, the drawings are executed almost automatically by the artist. Jacobi is interested in how her conscious decisions, unconscious preferences or something like her personal handwriting appear within this narrowly defined framework. She associates the visual pattern with the concept of "pattern of thought".

Jacobi lives and works in Berlin. Her work has been shown at SaRang Building in Jogjakarta, Indonesia (2017), Berlin Weekly (2018), Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin (2019) and at the Berlin Paper Positions (2020), among others. In 2019 she was a stipendiary of the Goldrausch Künstlerinnen Projekt. In 2020 her artist book "Pattern Book" was published by Revolver Publishing in Berlin.

• Funded by Stiftung Kunstfonds, das NEUSTART KULTUR-Programm and Senate Department for Culture and Europe.

PRESS RELEASE

Exhibition view: Mareike Jacobi, The unexpected can occur as long as it follows the logic of things., einBuchhaus. 2021 (Photo: Mikyung Song)