“Absence as Origin, or the Patience of the Very Last Question”^[1]
Christoph Loos’s Woodcuts as Approaches to a new Meta-Language

Without a doubt, works by Christoph Loos are in keeping with the tradition of the woodcut, even though this ancient printing technique is both used and reflected in his works in an unusual manner. In this way, a totally new significance is attached to this seemingly pure craftsman’s technique within the structural meaning of the works, a factor that is decisive for their comprehension. A far cry from simply being a technique for producing images and image reproductions – the way it has been used since the 15th century – in these works, the woodcut turns into a meta-language, in which through the reflection of the conditions of the (re-)production of the image, the (re-)production of the conditions of the image is made visible at the same time.

Form, which is form, continues to produce form, whereby in this symbiotic association, opposites blend into one another, just as separations and connections are partially dissolved and new mutual relationships come about, forming their figures and structures beyond languages. This occurs simultaneously and equally with the coexistence of void and abundance, presence and absence, sign and non-sign.

The vocabulary of these works, which arises entirely from the obvious logic of the genesis of the form, contains and comprises the “reverse” of this process as well, namely the destruction of the natural organic form. This may be interpreted as a metaphor for an image genesis, which is open to both sides. In this duality of opposite aspects, the image defies the logic of language and undermines its clarity by perpetually transforming its horizon of meaning, transcending it, and ultimately shifting it into infinity. In this respect, the image means neither form nor motif, but the individual work as a whole, consisting of different elements that communicate with one another across a distance. The image is only created through this distance as an imaginary relationship, an incorporeal body inserted into the void, like the quietness between the words where what may not be said is articulated in silence. (…)

(Quotation: Prof. Dr. Karin Stempel, President Art Academy Kassel, ZimZum)