Dominic Michel
Manor Art Award 2022
In his artistic work, Dominic Michel (b. 1987) is interested in objects and places as well as their socio-cultural significance. “Objects are carriers, protagonists, and, at the same time, the language of a history that is continuously changing and being rewritten,” says Michel. He traces contemporary narratives along social, economic or private cycles. In doing so, he questions the symbolic charge of objects and localities and facilitates new perspectives.
In the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Michel, as recipient of the Manor Art Award 2022 presents his latest works – objects, videos and installations: for example, twelve identically tailored coats, the backs of which have been screen-printed with various motifs. Congealed into a “runway-defilee,” with it Michel raises questions about serial production and the fetish of the original. Michel also shows a wall object: an interior with three sofas is clamped between two metal plates, and in a dim living room cinema, we encounter a video work with short sequences of people outdoors, moving back and forth on the border between public and private space.
Original and copy, repetition and distinction, public and private space: these themes run like a common thread through the exhibition. Dominic Michel’s works illustrate the extent to which interventions in content affect context, thereby manifesting themselves as signs.
