bittersweet

Airiness far off: a loosely floating pattern- that is how Andrea Bischof herself describes the rhythmically repeating collection of holes that she has burned into more than 30 square-metre of tissue paper. „Jovial“ occurs to me as the mood evoked, like air bubbles rising. Playful. From a distance „Holy Smoke“ intentionally ties with conventional associations of wallpaper with decor. Directly before the work, where it is visible that the wall´s irregularities show through the thin paper and that the mergence of wall and tissue paper creates delicate wrinkles reminiscent of skin, is where this initial impression is subtly broken. Actually the wall is only visible where the transparent skin has been opened using fire. Suddenly, at the moment when one recognizes the injury that has been done to this sensitive, exceedingly delicate material with cigarettes, one`s perception of „Holy Smoke“ is radically transformed. The seemingly perforated wall carries a threat of danger.

The star-shaped burn holes pierce the delicate paper, and the smoke has left traces of gray, brown and yellow on what was once a snowy white. The mystic, religious dimensions of smoke is for Andrea Bischof just as much inherent in this work as the theme of smoking and breathing.

„Holy Smoke!“ is the exclamation made by a Scottish farmer and friend of the artist in moments of great astonishment. This humorous aspect is also important and contributed to the choice of title.

Ingeborg Erhart