Monitor 3 (bystander), 2024
HEPA filter, artificial lily, artificial leaf
60 x 60 x 30 cm
I went to therapy because I felt like something was holding me back from being happy, and I suspected that something might be me. I loved the drama of therapy. It is all so formal and ritualistic. The handshake, the white furniture, the expensive air purifier on the floor. If it's working, it's doing so silently. If it's not, then I guess it's fair to ask why it's there.
Behind my therapist’s armchair, there's a painting of three poppies. Oil paint and paper-mâché. Mixed media. I've spent a lot of time staring at those poppies. Two erect and one slightly flaccid. I want my therapist to turn around and ask me which poppy I would be if I were one of them. I have an answer prepared, but she never asks. Once, she asked me how I feel, and I said I feel like an aquarium filled with fog. She nodded quietly. I felt better, so I guess it must be working.
Maximilian Seegert´s "Monitors" are made from components of air purifying systems. Stripped from their functional setups, the filters become totems. Objects promising purity and protection, though you're never quite sure how or whether they work.
Seegert's particular sense of humor and awareness of the absurd peek through the elegant presentation and visual austerity of his work. Symbols of Western purity, like blonde hair and lilies, appear alongside mechanical parts, rendering them equal.
- Avi Bolotinsky
Monitor 4 (an authority imagined), 2024
HEPA filter, artificial lily, ventilation grille
30 x 30 x 30 cm
Untitled (Flirty object), 2024
Steel,aluminium, perfume test strip, magnet, You or somebody like you (perfume) by Etat Libre d’Orange, cables
120 x 60 x 30 cm