Toni Schmale - opferblech

Can objects help in learning to perceive bodies differently? This is one of the questions that Toni Schmale’s extensive solo exhibition at basis e. V. explores. A selection of existing artworks and new works produced especially for the exhibition offer visitors the opportunity to reflect on social and gendered processes of formation and transition. Ultimately, it is up to the viewer to decide what the large-format steel sculptures reveal about themselves and us. As highly aesthetic and technically perfected forms, they can be equally understood as reflexive elements that confront the viewer with their own physicality. The title of the exhibition, that can be translated as ‚sacrificial panel‘, refers to a metal sheet used in the steel industry to prevent unwanted pressure marks and deformations that can arise during the bending or moulding process of a steel object. When placed between the press and the object being produced, all of the knocks and bumps, dents and edges, the collateral damage, in other words, that occurs during the moulding process are inscribed into the sheet. In this way, it is ‘sacrificed’ and acquires a new and individual form that simultaneously attests to the transition from material to an industrial functional product. The practice of using a sacrificial sheet metal is a prerequisite for the production of an apparently perfect form.