In her works, conceptual artist Karin Sander references existing spaces or materials and, in this way, critically examines the creative process of a work. In her oeuvre, latency plays a significant role. She aspires to reveal something previously hidden, not yet evident, and so to create a sense of wonder in the beholder. In her 'patina pictures', a series developing since 1990, she sells prefabricated white primed canvases which have not been primed. The collectors hang the works at a place they choose themselves. They decide how long to leave the works there, exposed to the prevailing conditions. As a result, the canvases acquire a patina and this then becomes the real work of art. Hence, Karin Sander continues the original process of creation ad absurdum to a point where the art work, as it were, creates itself. This produces a cycle, a new necessity ‑ art is not created for the beholder, but the beholders themselves establish the parameters for results which they can then, in turn, view.

Photography: Roland Horn
Courtesy Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Wien, Sassa Trülzsch, Berlin
© Karin Sander, VG Bildkunst Bonn, 2011