Atmospheric Transfer The atmosphere permeating a location is of utmost importance for Thea Timm’s artistic work. This not only includes landscape and architecture but also particular places or spaces. The artist takes in what these locations offer and transfers these moods in intuitive ways to her mostly sculptural, installative, and at times filmic and photographic works. This atmospheric transfer manifests itself, for instance, in her installation cabin in the woods (2004). Timm’s childhood memories of her grandmother’s wooden cabin located in a forest in southern Germany were the point of departure for the work.1 The installation functions like a transfer of the original to the exhibition context. In reality it is only a replica in which the artist has made use of several elements from the actual cabin.2 Both realities are visually linked to one another in imperceptible ways. The artist enshrouds the cabin in fog and diffused light, lending the scene a mysterious aura. One approaches the work almost cautiously, and, once standing at the door, it becomes clear that it is locked. Only the view through the window provides a glimpse into the private interior realm. Intermingled with the genius loci of this location are associations to the aesthetic and the “air” of the 1960s in which the dwelling was constructed.3 The spatial experience is enhanced by the aspects that remain concealed. On the one hand, Timm offers the visual perspective from outside to inside. On the other, she keeps the viewer at a distance while simultaneously incorporating him or her into the experience by creating an emotionally charged, quasi-filmic narrative atmosphere that offers room for one’s own memories, thoughts, and interpretations. The artist creates, so to speak, a surface onto which our own collective memory can be projected. Hence, the exterior and interior spaces that are also the focus of her videos and photographs are always devoid of human presence. Cabin in the woods also visualizes the process of memory. “Memory not only needs a single location it seems to mainly require a form that it can attach itself to.”4 Thoughts of bygone times increasingly slip away from us; over the years they become more diffuse and fade away. Parallel to this, suggestion and imagination are capable of manifesting events in memory that never actually took place. Thea Timm’s approach is characterized by a personal way of seeing things—one would almost like to say by an unbiased manner of looking coupled with an expanded sense of curiosity. Actual childhood memories lead in other works to notions such as home(land), with echoes of the lower-middle class life the artist came to know while growing up in her hometown in northern Germany5—even if she herself never felt a part of it. It is possible to read her inlay works from this perspective. Using a variety of wood veneers Timm has created works that alternate between two- and three-dimensionality. Driving Nuts (2008) consists of a triptych of nautical themes including a helm, a sailboat, and a knot display that could have been lifted from a dockside bar or a Seemannsheim sailor’s home. In another installation the artist presents hunting-themed inlays in combination with a rustic fence that absurdly meanders in a loop through the exhibition space. In Germany one mostly recognizes this type of boundary from backyards or gardens, which are not used to protect from the wild, but are a means for the owner to demarcate property borders. Timm turns this lower-middleclass convention on its head, breaks apart this staked-out zone, and casts in an absurd and amusing light the fence that is emblematic of convention and uptightness. In contrast to cabin in the woods, the domestic infrastructure is presented here in a preposterous manner, thereby detaching it from its original purpose. With her inlay works Timm not only takes up an old handicraft but also plays with a certain hobby aesthetic. The use of veneers, gluing, careful detail work, and compositions all recall model building and decorative home crafts. Such domestic tinkering traces back to the do-it-yourself movement that began in England in the 1950s and quickly spread to the European continent. By 1957 the first illustrated German do-it-yourself magazine Selbst ist der Mann was published in Germany. Through today this amateur culture continues to enjoy enormous popularity.6 Timm has also always been interested in handicraft. However, she upsets this folk art impression mainly through her choice of titles. Driving Nuts (which is grammatically incorrect but intended to mean ‘going crazy’) refers on the one hand to the lunacy within the hermetic system of the do-it-yourselfer world in our basements. On the other hand, the title is to be taken literally: “driving” is reflected in the image of the helm and the model boat, and “nuts” is a reference to the veneer itself. It conjures up associations to floating wooden boats navigating like nutshells on top of an endless expanse of sea. Despite their highly aesthetic appeal, the panels evoke associations to traditional clubhouses. This atmospheric link can be traced back to Timm’s fascination for a feeling of social belonging of the kind found in self-purposed clubs that foster and support the recreational time activities of their members in a variety of realms. Belonging to such institutions are, for example, hunting clubs, maritime camaraderie clubs, or marksmen clubs, etc. Timm’s work Wimpelkette also deals with the insignias of club culture. In 2009 at Galerie Skulpturi DK in Copenhagen she presented in the exhibition space a nearly ten-meter long cord with pennants in alternating light beech and dark mahogany veneers. This kind of decorative flag hanging is familiar as ornamentation for towns or city districts for celebrating (shooting) festivals or other kinds of social festivities. For many generations the pennant has also been considered an object for indicating identity or allegiance. Thus in maritime navigation some kinds indicate whether particular crew members are on board, such as commanders or admirals, and serve as a means of communication with other ships. At the beginning of an official soccer or handball match opposing team captains exchange club pennants as a sign of the bond and friendship with one another. Frequently the pennants also serve as souvenirs for clubs, pilgrimage sites, travel destinations, or tourist attractions. All of these meanings resonate within Wimpelkette. The unusual selection of rigid, seemingly high-end material in contrast to typical flexible plastic, fabric, or paper, means that the mini flags that are supposed to flutter in the wind remain fixed in a single position. Timm investigates here the transition between standstill and movement by almost halting time and freezing the pennants in their characteristic flutter. Thus, similar to how this represents specific information in a general way, the wooden mini flags symbolize pennant strings in themselves. The temporary ornamentation becomes an almost furniture-like spatial element, transferring its inherently festive mood to the exhibition space. In a sense Wimpelkette employs a strategy that runs counter to the looping rustic fence: whereas the fleeting city ornamentation is statically fixed as a universal image, the presence of the rigid fence per se is loosely arranged in the exhibition space. With Timm, everyday objects, spaces or locations are the things that make their way into the exhibition context. Often one’s awareness of them is only raised via this transference. An example of this is Schnee von gestern Water Under the Bridge. For an outdoor exhibition in 2007, the artist presented a discarded GDR streetlight, which was displayed on the ground as if it had been randomly deposited there.7 The confusing aspect, however, was that it was still illuminated, i.e. it was still “intact.” The sculpture possesses a humorous nonchalance, not the least by means of its title, which reminds one that the streetlight is a relict from an earlier era. The casualness of the presentation also concealed the enormous logistical effort that actually went into the project. Schnee von gestern also considers, however, the question concerning who actually determines what is worth preserving, what isn’t and why? In terms of the development of eastern Germany, which, for example, is also traceable in Berlin where architectonic relicts from the GDR disappear from daily life in succession, this question is more than pertinent. The streetlight not only allows one to reminiscence over the bygone ambiance of East German cities, it stands for another kind of city fixture that ostensibly no longer has any value and has been replaced by newer models. The artist pays homage to these things with a great degree of dedication and care. The illuminated streetlight almost seems like a character that defiantly continues to illuminate despite the fact that surrounding societal circumstances have changed, rendering it useless. Thea Timm constantly encounters in her immediate, everyday surroundings conditions whose universality she tests and addresses artistically. This approach is often expressed through original elements that are presented in combination with her own works. An unequivocal love for materials shows throw. She searches for the transition from the two-dimensional to the object, from the actual place to the model, and from societal convention to the uncommon. Via these atmospheric transfers she plumbs not infrequently themes of home and homeland as well as atmospheric realms. Given that homeland is always something personal, Timm’s works contain both the chance to identify with them as well as the possibility of raising unsettled feelings. With her precisely attuned artworks she not only sharpens our awareness of daily phenomenon, but she opens up the space for personal recollections, associations, and secret yearnings. Susanne Köhler, 2010 Notes 1 Strictly speaking the cabin was located in Musberg, an incorporated area of Leinfelden-Echterdingen south of Stuttgart. 2 Following her grandmother’s death the family tore down the cabin in 2007, returning the plot to its natural state. 3 See Carina Herring, “Ein echter Fan steht natürlich. Ereignisse zwischen Bild und Wirklichkeit,” in: Thea Timm, published by Landeshauptstadt Kiel/Stadtgalerie Kiel and Thea Timm, 2007. 4 Thea Timm in conversion with the author on February 28, 2010 in Berlin. 5 The artist grew up in Sprenge. It is the smallest part of Steinberg im Kreis Storman, a community with 2,600 residents, northeast of Hamburg. 6 The term was first used in reference to home hobbyists, and later in the 1970s it was also used in the punk and hardcore subculture scene. Today it generally encompasses a range of activities in the hobby and culture realm. 7 Referenced here is the exhibition 01/01, held inside a greenhouse in Berlin-Lichtenberg, 2007.

A true fan stands certainly Events between image and reality It is extremely tempting to squeeze through the filigree wood frame and rows of folding chairs to investigate once, as swiftly as can be, whether you can in fact catch a glimpse of the playing field. The barrier, however, is too high, and obscures your view. This disappointment, already alluded to in the title’s triple negation, cuts directly to the essence of the installation not this, not that, not nothing (nicht dies, nicht das, nicht nichts) by Thea Timm. It creates an non-tactile interplay in different dimensions: between inside and outside, between sensory experience and mental abstraction. We are standing in an exhibition room which is drawn out lengthwise and are observing from behind a 2.5-metre-high wood structure which curves slightly, implying an oval. The construction’s latticed-wood frame, upon which three levels of folding chairs are mounted, underlines the standardized modular system and its backdrop-like presence. The grandstand fragment seems light and inspires feelings of anticipation and emptiness all at once. It extends out into the room in such a manner that a third of the illuminated surface at the back is detached. Those viewing from the entryway are left with only a narrow, shadowy passageway. A slide projector dimly lights the entryway, quickly flashing a sequence of sculptural arrangements; variations constructed of ordinary materials which, as a playful series of experiments, offer insight into the creative thought process. Apart from this, all views of the installation, although they are eagerly directed at the alluring light beyond, are reflected back off the backs of the steeply climbing tiers. not this not that, not nothing is a section of a grandstand which the artist displays as an object while considering its quality as imagery. A grandstand is normally a concentrically stepped facility surrounding the playing field in a stadium. Its dual function as a mix of stage and fan area allows both an optimal view of “them down there”, thanks to elevated seating, and puts the audience itself on display. Yet Timm’s installation thwarts both intentions. She forces the observer to look from backstage, from a gap, where it is not even possible to see through the rows of chairs at what is presumably taking place. It is all the more surprising that the view which is limited to the backs of the old wooden chairs sharpens the perception of the surroundings; this viewpoint simultaneously triggers forgetfulness of oneself and acutely enhanced perception, feelings fed further by the ever-rotating reel of slides. Through this, Thea Timm achieves a shift in perspective which addresses the staging of architecture, space and emptiness, and the relationship between spectator and player, stage and grandstand. Various stadiums which the artist had previously examined provided the basis for this work. They were incorporated into the installation as abstract sketches in altered scales and with different materials. Moreover, the implementation of genuine elements alludes to an actual site: the Deutschlandhalle in Berlin, the place the artist borrowed the folding chairs from. The grandstand itself represents a space which is in a constant state of transformation and redefinition. “What fascinates me is its many facets. The Deutschlandhalle was erected for the Olympic Games in 1936 in only eight months; it was opened by Hitler and was the largest multi-purpose facility in the world. For years they have been debating tearing it down because, of course, it no longer meets today’s demands for use by the media, and probably only a portion of the arena, the recently renovated ice hockey rink, will be integrated into a new complex. This transformation intrigues me.” Thea Timm’s work balances on a narrow perch between functional construction and aesthetic deconstruction; not entirely sculpture, but not entirely imagery either. At first glance her installations, models, films and photographs give the impression of cool calculation. But she is in no way merely concerned with realizing an intellectual concept, she is equally interested in the physical presence of ideas and forms that can be perceived with the senses. Again and again, she considers sites which are overlaid with a network of connections, associations and alterations, and the emotions people experience in these places. In particular, the artist inquires about the spatial aspect of memory and, its corollary, about the memories spaces have – because concrete locations are bound to the presence of something immaterial, to memories, to a specific aura or a special atmosphere. Timm’s various room sections deal with a particular type of spatialized memory which creates spaces which cannot be delineated, but instead appear segmented and detached. All experiences have a spatial element, given that they are invariably intertwined with projections and thus take on characteristics of a trauma. Seen from this perspective, spaces can actually be quite traumatic. Timm’s works revolve around the phenomena of illusion, dream and false memory, and the constructed reality which she approaches with various conceptual strategies. On the one hand she builds her installations out of a conglomeration of original parts and additional elements and, on the other hand, she showcases them through the emphatic choreography of extremely bright light, mist and twilight, thereby distorting perception. Timm frequently determines the position of the viewer and his or her line of vision by making doors impassable or entryways somehow blocked. By denying anticipated overviews, insights and perceptions, the installations contribute to their own fragmentation and the skewed way in which they are perceived. They keep viewers at a distance yet create dramatic effects that involve the body and the senses. Whereas not this, not that, not nothing examines the architecture of a public building – a stadium – the artist’s work transfer looks at private spaces as another venue for collective forms of behaviour, which are therefore structured by change. In 2005, for an exhibition project in an old building which was being restored, she made a copy of an outdoor toilet which was to be moved inside an apartment as part of the refurbishment. The toilet, reconstructed to a scale of 1:33.5, was so finely reproduced that even the dust on the green pipes of the original was recreated. The “real” toilet cabin, which is obviously facing imminent destruction, can still be entered, so that visitors can directly compare the original and the model and check for accuracy by moving from one to the other – with the sole restriction that the toilet door of the model is locked. Visitors can only look at it from above. In arranging her work thus, Timm is making it clear that, although she dedicated herself to detail, her aim was not to create a doll’s house toilet but to say something about the outdoor toilet’s anticipated move into the apartment. This luxurious sanitary facility may be very pleasant, but this “internalisation” of a thing that was traditionally placed outside represents a change in attitudes to housing and social rituals. transfer therefore addresses the transformation of interiors, a process which, throughout alterations in function and lifestyle, can best be traced by observing the fixed floor plan. The issue is not so much one of visible and invisible changes as a description of the conscious and subconscious perception of spatial changes and shifts. The imaginary interface between the real place and its altered perception in the model is the basis of many of Timm’s works, as in the case of cabin in the woods. The installation, which was created in 2004, is a copy of her grandmother’s cabin, which the artist moved from southern Germany to a gallery in Kiel in northern Germany. While it is important for understanding transfer to know that the original exists as a basis for the model, viewers of cabin in the woods only have a hint on their invitations that this is a faithful copy of an original. At first we enters the exhibition room almost entirely disoriented, as it is filled with fog. As we fumble our way through the mist, we get a strangely ambivalent feeling which is somewhere between irritation and curiosity, between exposure and secrecy. Once we reach the wooden cabin and hesitate, about to enter the unexpected intimacy of the place, we realizes that the doors are locked. “The interior of cabin in the woods is not to be experienced by entering the cabin, but by looking through a window. The installation can only be perceived as a picture, a surface. I equate this with the process of memory, which never corresponds to reality, but which is a construct from stories, photographs, hindsight, images and personal feelings. I want to activate this idea with the picture I present.” At the same time the artist undermines the distance she has sought to create by deliberately giving the installation an emotional atmosphere and moody elements: cabin in the woods is a space full of ideas and stories which retrieve images sunk deep in our memories. There are also clear reminiscences of the aesthetic and of the oppressive atmosphere of the 1960s, when the cabin was constructed. “The picture I am creating forms a projection screen for the viewer, whose own feelings and memories can be triggered. People who experienced the 1960s in Germany react differently to the work than people from other cultures. At the same time, it is such a simple picture than anyone can find a way to identify with it.“ The choice of a locked cabin as an object is strategic in two senses. On the one hand, the cabin itself is an intimate and secretive refuge in the middle of the woods as well as a natural occurrence in a light-and-fog setting which viewers can experience with all their senses. On the other hand, it is a thought process in concrete form bearing on the workings of memory taking place in a diffuse fashion and in another period – the past. Penetrating those memories would be like disturbing the fragile order of things. In her video work home sweet home Timm also creates an atmosphere which she describes as floating between object and occurrence. In film she is able to make a topic concrete in a way that would not be possible in sculpture or photography. She abandons any idea of plot in favour of a poetry of pure rhythm: home sweet home begins with a camera movement towards a door, slowly opening on an empty room. We hear footsteps on the wooden floor, the creaking of the door and a light breeze, gently moving the curtains. The room is empty. The camera focuses on the windows, through which falls the blue-white light of an unseen moon. Outside are trees thick with foliage. In the same constant rhythm the camera glides onward, swooping past a gold-framed picture hanging on the opposite wall. Unexpectedly, before we have turned full circle in the room, a blast of wind forces the door open. The title fades in and the red light of sunrise floods the room. Once again the camera moves along the windows and walls. Nothing has changed, but the emptiness seems a little less eerie in the warmer light. The last movement back towards the door is filmed slightly from above so that gradually we imaging that we have not been moving around a real room. This impression is strengthened by a scarcely perceptible asynchrony between picture and sound in the second part of the film. And indeed, the artist recorded the work with a “finger camera” inside a model, the floor plan of which measured just 50cm x 70cm. Despite the fact that the miniature room is just a constructed microcosm, the viewer is emotionally involved and experiences how the empty room becomes a representation of the vagueness of the past. Even if one comes to terms with the lack of a subject, as can sometimes be determined in the fragility of the finger camerawork, the steady slow tempo of the camera is relentless. It demands personal memories, which could be recalled, yet, at the same time, deprives them of any basis. Contrary to the suggestion in the title, home sweet home produces the uncomfortable feeling of a fruitless search. Timm’s latest installation, The Moon as a Falling Apple (Mond als geworfener Apfel), on the other hand, places eventfulness in the centre of things and culminates in the picture of the jump as a moment of power between preparation, leap and fall. In the exhibition container Prima Kunst,which is docked at the Stadtgalerie Kiel, Timm has installed a 2.8-metre-long springboard, positioning it inside the container in such a way that spectators in the gallery look along the length of the board. The visitor’s first impulse is to walk along the board, to test its potential energy and bounce up and down on it a few times. As children we all stood with wet, wrinkly feet on the rough surface of a diving board, high above both water and those expectant playmates who won’t allow us to back out. We are in turmoil; we feel the desire to jump, the feeling of weightlessness and floating, yet we fear the dizzying fall and the explosiveness of the impact. But, as always in Thea Timm’s work, it is not possible to actually physically experience the piece; everything must happen in the viewer’s mind. Timm robs the springboard of its function by jamming two long pieces of wood between the surface of the springboard and the ceiling of the container. The pieces of wood place the board under such tension that its bottom end is raised up above the ground. To the right and left inside the container are four neon tubes which open up the sides of the room and detract from its boundaries. The sculpture is caught in this fragile balance of forces between the clearly discernible bending of the pieces of wood and the lifted bottom end of the springboard. Again, the picture of a diver is evoked, a diver in the moment when he leaps; his muscles tensed in concentration. He shoots up, overcoming gravity and describing an arch whose curvature is the same as that of the two pieces of wood which allude to an instant in time. Timm is not concerned with the moment of the leap or of the landing, but exclusively with the in-between moment of an imagined time of conquered physical forces, where gravity loses its effect and the body of the diver is weightless. Floating. The pieces of wood follow the trajectory of a fanned-out vectorial motion and sketch out a possibility of the impossible and a way to imagine the unimaginable. The theme of jumping (and falling) as a physical act has constituted a genre of its own since the 1960s. We need only refer to Yves Klein’s staged photograph “Leap into the Void” (1960), in which he is pictured suspended over a road with outstretched arms and his head raised, his body completely tensed. He stages his leap from a window as a symbol of crossing physical borders, as an incredible, all-powerful self-portrait which reformulates the question about the body’s location, i.e. its spatial and temporal norms and restrictions. In most cultures the image of a jump provides metaphors for self-determination, courage and freedom, but also for the contrary, for hopelessness, suicide and the final plunge. But only those who do actually jump experience the space between take-off and landing. Whether flight or fall, escaping the earth’s gravity, becoming light and floating, is the real thrill of jumping. In the realm of sport this thrill is coupled with performing a movement by employing elegance and technical perfection in midair, supported and then catapulted into the sky by the springboard and its dynamic impulse. Borrowing from Newton’s reflections on gravity, the title of the installation The Moon as a Falling Apple also suspends meanings, explicitly stating what the piece is about. Its topic is that of all of Timm’s oeuvre: thought patterns which revolve around transitory gaps in space, places between image and reality. © Carina Herring 2007 All quotes from Thea Timm originated in a conversation with Johanna Domke in December 2006. Bibliography: Archisculptures. Über die Beziehungen zwischen Architektur, Skulptur und Modell. Kunstverein Hannover, 2001. Architektur + Sport: vom antiken Stadion zur modernen Arena. Ed. Architekturmuseum der TU München, 2005. Sport in der zeitgenössischen Kunst. Ed. Kunsthalle Nürnberg, 2001. Naschert, Guido: “Der Sprung, Editorial.”, Parapluie, elektronische Zeitschrift für Kulturen, Künste, Literaturen, No. 7, Winter 1999/2000, http://parapluie.de/archiv/sprung/editorial/