A Window View by Robert Creeley (Skyline)

The exhibition features three photographic diptychs from the Window Views series by German artist Natalie Czech. These photographs are based on the cover illustrations of archival New Yorker magazines from the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s, depicting different situations with a view through a window. By cutting out the cover of the magazine and pages beneath it, Czech word by word reveals poems from different authors. The window views become a field of tension between the inside and the outside as well as the image and text. The photographs were made during the Covid-19 lockdown and are meditations on the radical political, social and psychological changes and distortions in human relationships as well as the perception of distance and intimacy in general. The artworks pose the question: “What impact did the spatial, social and media-related limitation have on the view to the ‘outside’?” And at the same time, they become maps of reconfigured proximity and distance in their own right, bringing out the hidden voices of people on the surface of the illustrated urban life.

In A Window View by Langston Hughes based on André Francois’s cover illustration published in 1977, a variety of window views overlooking a seascape near New York City are depicted. Czech cut out several window panes down to page 23, where the column Talk of the Town features a portrait of the African-American singer Garland Jeffreys. In the original text, Jeffreys is quoted as saying: “‘Brighton-Beach-Private’ – When I was little, I used to wonder why my friends could go into that place.” Within this text, Natalie Czech identifies and highlights through overpainting a poem by the African-American poet, writer and activist Langston Hughes (1901–1967), addressing departure and ultimately transcending social limitations.

In A Window View by Robert Creeley, based on the cover illustration by Charles E. Martin published in 1962, a collage of New York’s skyline is created from excerpts of various real-estate ads, referencing different housing standards. Natalie Czech cut out several ads down to page two containing the column Goings On About Town and marked the words of Robert Creeley’s (1926–2005) poem with crosses. The original text, the motif and the found poem engage in a dialogue that reveals the interplay between what is said and left unsaid, between the visible and the hidden.

In A Window View by Yunte Huang, based on the cover illustration by Saul Steinberg published in 1994, a cubist-like window view to Manhattan’s busy streets is depicted. Natalie Czech follows the silhouettes and cuts out views down to page 100, revealing the review of the movie I’ll Do Anything by James L. Brooks. The film portrays an actor who must choose between career and family. In these lines, Czech finds and highlights the poem by Yunte Huang on the complex divide between fulfilled and failed life.