Odradek is the name of an enigmatic figure resembling a thread star card in Franz Kafka’s 1917 short story “The Cares of a Family Man”. Displaying both thing-like and human characteristics, Odradek appears as an inscrutable entity composed of a multifaceted, colorful mesh of inextricably knotted pieces. The artworks on display in the exhibition “The Odradek Effect” also lead us into a world of odd things that develop a life of their own or come to life and whose function cannot be clearly fathomed. Against the background of today’s digital world, the waywardness of things takes on a new significance. Magic relationships and analog longings develop in their company. Things can be this way or that, their effect being reversible.
Stefanie De Vos’s ceramic fragments are architectural set pieces that also define the space they occupy. Emese Kádár’s hand-woven tapestries create a link between the pixel-based digital world and traditional textile stitch patterns. Ádám Kokesch builds complex constructions from recycled materials according to a precise logic and experiments with the bricolage aesthetic of dysfunctional objects. Markus Hanakam and Roswitha Schuller develop forms that combine the appeal of sequined design objects and mysterious artifacts. Made of furry, woolen, and ceramic materials, Mira Dalma Makai’s objects merge different feelings of organic vitality. Imre Nagy’s fragile compositions are assembled from everyday things whose implied function fades away in the void. Anneliese Schrenk’s works reveal the affinity of the fetishized, magical object with human culture. Oktavia Schreiner paints imaginative architectures, spaces, and landscapes on clay objects, which she combines with wooden structures to create playful objects.
