Malta Contemporary Art will be opening their 5th show tonight entitled "Visual Mechanics" which runs until the end of May.

Martina Schmuecker, a German artist living and working in Berlin and London makes sculptures in the widest sense of the word. Using herself as well as directing actors in her work, she creates visually stunning images that remind us of the tableaux vivant. The performances are moments of still reflection on a sculptural image, using elements of architecture and furniture as props as well as playing with well-known images from art history. Her performance work to date, has included a construction of the “back” of the painting “The Pleasure Principle “ by Rene Magritte performed by her German gallerist, the staging of a fight for two hands in “Colorfight” and "Auszeit", an orange box with long legs patiently waiting on a public square in London.

Visual Mechanics is an exhibition combining two important strands of Martina Schmuecker’s recent work - one being a new series of drawings, the other a newly developed performance. Her drawings resemble technical or architectural plans for buildings or machinery, and show fragile and abstract constructions that look impossible to build in reality and yet give the impression of being plans derived from already existing forms. The performance “Orbit Green” is an equally constructed image. Here a woman is seen reclining on a narrow plinth, wrapped in green fabric and surrounded by screens that obstruct the view onto the performance. The restrictions in viewing the performance turn it into a study of habits of looking.The manipulation of the view is a key element of this work that uses the viewer’s imagination to complete the image on show, by manipulating the way the work can be looked at.