Words, figures, texts: Thomas Locher’s work revolves around language and communication. The artist, who was born in Munderkingen in Baden-Württemberg in 1956 and now lives in Berlin, is an agent of Conceptual Art. Connecting the critical and analytical software of the 1960s and 1970s to current issues, he disentangles impregnated networks of associations through schematized and deadpan juxtapositions of ideas and facts, of commentary and image. With his textual pictures, Locher uncovers the structures of systems. Thomas Locher’s works are always orchestrations of thought processes, offering hyperlinks to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and his picture theory of language or the linguistic explorations undertaken by the theory-versed artist Joseph Kosuth. All of this is accompanied by a pronounced sociological interest, for when Thomas Locher studies a system, he also examines its political implications and its practical impact on the life and actions of people.

Gift. To Give. Giving. Given. Gift, if there is any … (J. D.) #10 is the second work by the artist that has been acquired for the evn collection. The laserchrome print on Dibond, an aluminum composite board, shows the photograph of a collage composed of an inscribed piece of cardboard and hands holding a picture. In the latter one can see figures performing gestures of giving and taking. The English text contains the line “...to give something to someone...” and thus refers to one of the most influential contemporary thinkers dealing with the theme of gift: Jacques Derrida. Derrida has dealt with the dimension of giving in several works, raising the question whether one can make a gift without getting caught in the economic cycle of exchange, obligation, and indebtedness. In his recent works, Locher addresses marginal issues of economics, which also include the principle of giving. While these works make a statement about the nature and meaning of mutual exchange, they also reflect the multiple aspects of a gift that may not be wanted at all. This calls to mind Michael Haneke’s film Caché, which is about a gift, about God and money, and about conscience and justice.

Brigitte Huck, 2011 (translation: Wolfgang Astelbauer)