On Transformation

group exhibition at Studio Teile 2o46

curated by Alix Weidner

May 2025

"Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed." - A.Lavoisier

This formula - based on 18th-century chemist Antoine Lavoisier's "law of conservation of mass", who is regarded as the inventor of modern chemistry - is the starting point for this exhibition. 

Here, it becomes the source of a reflection on materiality. The invited artists work with liquids, states of aggregation and changing materials, as well as with social, political, scientific and poetic forms of transformation. Between body and theory, matter and myth, spaces are created in which the solid becomes unstable and the trouble takes shape. Throughout the exhibition, materials are used in unexpected ways: they are modified, recycled, and diverted from their original function - or even repurposed entirely. 

Pavlos Ioannides' painting “Cruising Utopia” - referring to José Esteban Muñoz’ book on queer theory, focuses on the fluidity and movement of forms. Using fairly limited means and a limited palette of colours (charcoal on uncoated canvas), he creates dynamic forms conveying an effect of constant movement. The dark shapes perhaps recall the water currents that surround the land where he grew up: the island of Cyprus?  Sometimes, these forms are derived from signs and writing. Sometimes, too, they become almost troubling, oppressive masses, resembling walls. Others will see them as clouds or swarms: present but still difficult to grasp, ephemeral and in perpetual becoming.

- text by Alix Weidner