BOUNDARIES WITHOUT BOUNDS 

Setting things apart means defining lines between them. According to Spinoza, every definition is in itself a negation. No thing can be defined on its own. Distinctions between things can only be made by separating them from something other, by using dividing lines or boundaries. This applies to individuals as well: realising that “I am” means realising that “I am not you.” An “I” is formed by experiencing something other and by becoming aware of the existence of boundar ies. These boundaries are necessary, for only they make freedom pos sible. This freedom, however, is also subject to constraints. Thinking, while free, depends on definitions and categorisations, and words de termine and confine what they describe. Physical boundaries, rooms for example, too, create a space of possibilities while also confining one’s freedom of movement. Like a cocoon that a caterpillar needs to grow and thrive in and still must break free from when the time has come, boundaries in general should be permeable and conquerable again and again. Katharina Mörth uses boundaries in her work while also reflecting on the ambivalence they present. It is most obvious for the viewer in her early work, the cocoons. Rigid and strong hollow bodies made from steel plates separate an inside from an outside. The created boundary, however, is permeable. While the steel plates define the organic form of the sculptures, perforations in the steel open up their inner space. Instead of just closing off the inside from the outside, the bounda ry connects both spaces. The inside, lonely as it is, can also become consolatory, which is evident in an extended series of the cocoons. For this, Mörth transforms the sculptures to light objects. She il luminates their insides. Light pierces through the perforations, and the boundaries are projected in variations of light and shade onto a nearby wall. But it is not only the viewer who experiences boundaries, the making of the cocoons means pushing the limit and is in itself a borderline ex perience. In a strenuous physical effort, Katharina Mörth forces with hammer and tongs the machine-made flat steel into the organic forms of the sculptures. Only by embossing the three-millimetre-thick steel is it possible to weld under tension the individual plates. Mörth’s wearable objects are a continuation of the cocoons. These anthropomorphic shells and armour-like clothes not only show the difference between an inside and an outside. They are indeed wea rable. Also made of steel, these cocoons are more open and fragile and become a form of protection, an adjunct boundary of the human body that can also be taken off. 

Their making is different, too. With them, it is no impermeable steel body that needs perforations to form a connection between an inside and an outside. Here it is single parts, welded together to form a fragile border. In her early sculptures, the meaningful practical, material, and topical decisions for Katharina Mörth’s complete works have already been made. In her later works, a basic idea survives that can be subsumed under the term “boundary”. Not only her steel objects, but also her wood and stone ones, as well as other media works deal with the li mits of the material, the thin line between resilience and forgeability. 11 Mörth does not separate between material, form, and theme. Whet her carved from stone, shaped from wood with a chain saw, or welded from steel, the physical realisation is always part of the form. It is the result of the limits of the material as well as Mörth’s physical strength. A log is hollowed out and transformed into a perforated cocoon, bar ely stable. Solid stone is turned into a delicate object, forming a thin border. These large-dimensioned sculptures are the result of a very specific work situation. Most of them are created outdoors within the context of symposiums. Katharina Mörth acquired her wide range of techniques during her training to become a wood sculptor in Munich as well as during her studies in painting and graphics at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. While in the beginning she focused on paintings, she now uses, among other things, screen prints and photographic techni ques. In these series, too, the material realisation is an intrinsic part of the idea. Experiments with materials move along the border of concealment and display. In her series „Menschenhüllen“ from 2017, Mörth applies deep drawing to photography. With this technique, the pictorial surface, a clear boundary that only allows for an illusionis tic depiction of depth, is dissolved through transparency on the one hand and deforming the surface through modelled small sculptures and their negative forms on the other. This way, photographic reliefs are created. Illuminated from the back, they show the viewer that surfaces, boundaries, and separations are always relative. They are so mething that can never be rigid and must be re-set and re-negotiated again and again. 

Dr. Anna Spohn