With his current works – film installations and large-scale screen prints – Berlin based artist Wolfgang Plöger presents his sixth solo exhibition at Konrad Fischer Galerie.
Since the beginning of his career, Wolfgang Plöger has critically engaged with the U.S. Prison Industrial Complex as an interplay of the justice system, the prison industry, and economic interests. The system of exploiting prisoners dates back to the 17th century. The Rasphuis in Amsterdam, the first pre-modern prison, practiced this form of forced labor, specifically for the production of the rare dye Brazilin (today technically known as: Natural Red 24) from redwood (Pau Brazil). The raw material from the coastal rainforests of the Mata Atlântica also served as the namesake for the country of Brazil (braza meaning glowing red). Using acids and lye, Wolfgang Plöger extracts the colors for his large-scale screen prints from remnants of this now nearly extinct trees.
In his film installations, the artist addresses the death penalty in American prisons and the last statements of those sentenced to death. The statements are printed on 16mm blank film, running through rolls in the exhibition space. The projections show a rather gray image noise, with the text being decipherable only directly on the film material itself. Additionally, Wolfgang Plöger presents materials and publications on the topic of the Prison Industrial Complex.
For more than 20 years, Wolfgang Plöger has also focused on digital images and their creation, availability, and proliferation, exploring the performative dimension of images, where the respective technologies, from printing to distribution, largely determine the impact of the visual information.
His works have been exhibited in Vienna (fjk3 - Raum für zeitgenössische Kunst), Dresden (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Kupferstich-Kabinett), Den Haag (West Den Haag), The Art Institute of Chicago, New York (ICP - International Center of Photography), Heidelberger Kunstverein, Künstlerhaus Bremen, Frankfurt am Main (MMK Museum für moderne Kunst), and Düsseldorf (Weltkunstzimmer).
