Lift

With sound by Peter Stapleton and Kim Pieters

From February 2002 - February 2003, The Physics Room presents HARD SELL!! - a series profiling new and emerging talent in New Zealand contemporary art. Lyttelton based artist Katharina Jaeger, takes the penultimate slot in the series, with an installation of objects entitled Lift.

Jaeger’s practice often transforms materials and objects into contexts beyond their original function - recent works have regenerated the common plastic shopping bag, reconfigured by the artist into exquisitely crafted sleeping bags and life jackets. Shifting from the ‘real’ to the ‘surreal’ has been a constant in Jaeger’s practice and is continued with her installation at the Physics Room.

For her project Lift, Jaeger has incorporated textile, creating unique seamed stockings to cover found objects with a fleshy and stretchy translucent fabric. The everyday manufactured objects remain recognisable in shape and form - a child’s toy, a teapot or telephone - yet they are completely transformed and democratised by the fabric skin applied to each. Jaeger has also enlisted the talent of two South Island sound artists, Peter Stapleton and Kim Pieters, to create an accompanying soundtrack. Utilising the recorded sounds of many of the household objects seen in the installation, the musicians have created an eerie, droning white noise companion to the pink and seemingly playful objects masked by Jaeger in her installation.

Katharina Jaeger was the inaugural NCC 2000 Premier Award winner and has exhibited locally at the CoCA and Salamander Gallery. She is currently a tutor at the Christchurch Polytechnic School of Arts & Design.

Reviews, Essays & Articles
Domestic habits
The Press, 2002 Dec. 18, p. C3
Duncan, Margaret.
Lift: installation by Katharina Jaeger.

Artscene
The Package, December, 2002
Wood, Andrew Paul 

HARDSELL - BECAUSE YOU WANT IT!
KATHARINA JAEGAR - Artist Q&A
The Physics Room Annual, 2002