Jonas Bechtloff

Planetary Code Request
Solo exhibition at Ten Haaf Projects in Amsterdam,
2024

click on the image to see a virtual tour through the exhibition

Jonas Bechtloff's works could be described as timeless or fictitious relics, as they simultaneously refer to archaeological finds and contemporary technologies.
Different scientific paradigms are woven into one another and eclectically merged with superstition and alchemy.

Space serves as a symbol for the infinite nature of human curiosity and imagination and at the same time visualises the unavoidable limitations of consciousness.
In this sense, the Big Bang and black holes, telescopes and satellites get combined with abstract physical phenomena such as dark matter and quantum fluctuation, as well as the visual representations of this knowledge such as writing systems and dioramas.
These verified kinds of science are being juxtaposed with motifs such as the Tabula Smaragdina, which is regarded as the basic text of alchemy.

In the course of this, Bechtloff imagines a narrative around the initial impulse of his works, to which the title of this exhibition "planetary code request" refers: a suddenly appearing enigmatic inscription, whose shape is reminiscent of planets, calls for a decoding and thus forms the motivic starting point of the objects presented.
Could this code, which can be seen in the wall piece "Coordinates to connect 2" be a message or instruction from outer space? However, it reflects the specific temporality of Bechtloffs fictitious relics in which the future gets intertwined with the past. This leads to our familiar notions of progressive science being corrupted and our present shown as one possible among others.

The technologies are not staged as purely factual instruments for the purpose of objective knowledge, but are subordinated to the desire to create. Bechtloff plays textures off against each other and combines disparate elements into complex structures in which different aggregate states point to themes of transformation and emergence of a dynamically understood material. The immediacy and spontaneity of artistic intervention are demonstratively displayed. This could be seen as a form of subjectivisation that, unlike usual, leads to technology and functionality being moved from the sphere of objective knowledge into the radius of human access. As common categories of truth and truthfulness are being suspended, this also sheds new light on the significance of art and its relationship to science: as a place of creative impulse, which is the foundation of all knowledge of the humankind.
- Melissa Blau 2024

Monotypes
40 x 30 cm
2024

Arrival & Ich werde dabei sein
ceramics

2023