Medaille (Pawnbroker's)

In the joint exhibition Leerlauf und: Warten auf Durchzug in the Kunstverein's showcases, Florian Deeg and Jáno Möckel explored the forgetting of places, objects, and human encounters. In doing so, they questioned the double character of showcases, on the one hand as a museal presentation form for art and on the other hand as an advertizing format for consumer goods. In their multimedia installation, Deeg and Möckel combined the process of preserving memory with the aesthetics of decay. For this purpose, they appropriated objects and places from everyday life. The objects and spaces of familiar appearance were staged by alienating their material. Behind the glass panes of the showcases they seemed strangely removed from everyday life. In the showcases Möckel displayed, among others, the work Pawnbroker's, in which he stages the shop window of a pawnshop. The objects advertized in pawn stores are not new goods, rather valuable commodities. They are only displayed in the shop window if and when a loan cannot be repaid and the pawned item is not sold at the subsequent auction. The goods for sale carry personal stories and human predicaments. The question of the production or loss of value of goods are recurring themes in Möckel's work. In the exhibition, he confronted the peculiar aesthetic of pawnshop windows, somewhere between a jeweler's and a second-hand store, with a diorama of gray flocked objects. Typically used to finish surfaces, flocking is used in jewelry boxes for display and storage. From a distance, however, the diorama appeared artificially dusty. The alienated goods testify to neglect and loss of value as well as to refinement and value production.

As an annual edition, Möckel presents individual artefacts from the installation in small display case cubes. Here, too, the artificial layer of dust made of velvet fibers is preserved behind the Plexiglas that protects against dust. Thus, the exhibition or sales format of the showcase is singularly continued in this annual edition furthermore.

Jáno Möckel (lives in Hamburg) reflect the shortcomings of everyday life in a socio-economic context. Möckel studied at the HAW Hamburg and the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg in the class of Thomas Demand. He received the Hamburger Arbeitsstipendium 2021 and exhibited at Galerie Januar, Bochum (2018), Cultuurcentrum Strombeek, Brussels (2020) and Kunsthaus Hamburg (2021) and Spoiler Zone, Berlin (2021) among others.