Jonas Bechtloff

They say there is water on mars
Duo exhibition with Sophie Ullrich at Boutwell & Schabrowsky, Munich, 2023

6th July to 2nd September, 2023
In 1672, the polar caps of Mars were discovered and about three hundred years later it was confirmed that they are made of water - and dry ice. Mars as a terrestrial planet, with its polar caps, geysers and seasons is the stage for Sophie Ullrich and Jonas Bechtloff's joint narrative in the exhibition, "They say there is water on Mars".
The exhibition refers to the line between speculation and science and outer space, which serves as a projection of human hopes and fears for the future in pop culture.
Sophie Ullrich's and Jonas Bechtloff's works are characterised by their eclectic-ironic approach to the products of the commodity world and pop culture on the one hand and instruments of technology and science on the other.
In his sculptural works, Jonas Bechtloff emphasises the haptic and the tactile as indispensable conditions of our ability to know, which are made visible and tangible at the interface of nature and technology as the basis for artistic desire for expression and the human urge to explore.
Sophie Ullrich's paintings take up the trivial idea of packing a suitcase in their motifs. A well-tried aspirin or the Sodastream machine in the hand luggage play as accurately painted objects on schematic backgrounds with the utopia of a colonisation of the red planet.