#tobikeck

[tobikeck]

({{{:) Eater of Worlds (:}}})

As a brand-like sculptural wall piece, the Trilobite emoticon stands as a bold title within the exhibition. The type of font used for the six characters that compose the image is Roboto Bold. Roboto is the standard text font installed in the Android smartphone operating system, from which this combination was (possibly) discovered by me during daily text messaging. The accurate shape of the characters were reproduced with the traditional craft technique of slate tiles, commonly known for covering roofs and facades of houses in several regions in Germany and elsewhere. The stone material itself comes from prehistoric times, even holding fossil animal remains such as Trilobites or Ammonites from the Cambrian in some of its mining sites. Color and shape of the slates refer directly to the physiognomy of the Isopods shown.

© Tobi Keck + VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2025

[nadjakurz]

Bioturbation //  Superstimulus @ a&o Kunsthalle, Leipzig, 2019

animated loop

[tobikeck]

({{{:) Eater of Worlds (:}}})

The 2 by 3 meters LED screen showed 23 minutes of the Isopod's daily life activities in macro close-up video scenes. Social interactions, ingesting of vegetable litter and insect carrion and acts of mating were filmed in a small glass habitat. The landscape of the Isopod's home also held the real fossil Trilobite that was the model for the estimated five thousand plaster replica piled up in the exhibition space.

© Tobi Keck + VG Bild-Kunst Bonn, 2025

[tobikeck]

Rüdiger (based on a true story)

2023; instagram-manipulated photograph, silver pen, grave, flowers

This is the grave of Rüdiger. I buried his imaginary body for the group show 'Von Pionierpflanzen und Flâneusen', developed by Julia Kiehlmann. The exhibition surrounded the topic of abandoned and therefore vacant areas within the Eastside of Leipzig, highlighting the socio-political, ecological and also emotional meaning of these urban wastelands for their human visitors. I placed the grave on a nice spot next to a little bush, on a wide so-called 'Brache' underneath a car traffic bridge and besides train tracks. A perfect place to bury your beloved animal friend.

Rüdiger was an experienced tomcat living on a graveyard in Leipzig West. One of his eyes was dead and his fur was always a little filthy. He looked a little grumpy but he was actually a very friendly fella who also enjoyed some company, since he used to sit directly at the gate of the boneyard, where all the people would enter. Shortly after the first socially traumatizing lock-down, due to the pandemic, in 2020, he suddenly disappeared without a trace. His body was never found and people believe that some lonely soul kidnapped him as a companion. I kind of identified with that cat, ever since i first met him when i was doing a sculpture on that graveyard. One day, for no special reason - more as a little joke - I placed my own face on his picture with that simple spot camera in the instagram story tools (unfortunately the zuckerberg deactivated that nice tool a few years ago). This cute picture of Rüdiger (including my own hand in it, petting him) finally turned into a funny kind of ego-cam mirror self portrait. And I had turned into the Cheshire Cat version of Rüdiger. Needless to say, it somehow felt like burying myself in that lovely little grave under the bridge.

fare well, Rüdiger

[tobikeck]

Vertumnus

Fresh vegetable piece for the duo-exhibtion FRIDAY THIRTEEN with Johannes Bünemann at Berlin’s Nachschlag Art Space on Friday, August 13 2021

2021; vegetables; 1 x 1 x 0,2 m

see the complete exhibition on tzvetnik here:

https://tzvetnik.online/article/friday-thirteen-private-duo-show-by-tobi-keck-johannes-bunemann-berlin

[tobikeck]

SPIRITUALIZER

solo exhibition at Sunnybrook Artcenter in September 2021

In the very special habitat of the discarded trailer which is the Sunnybrook Artcenter, I created a scenery of a messy, laboratory-like working space. On basis of liquid spirit a. k. a. pure ethanol, cabbage and roots vegetables were apparently processed into sinister ghosts in a jar. Between canisters, industrial containers, litter and rotting bodies of flora, empty-eyed faces and heads were starring from their shelfs. In dim light, the visitors were led into an abandoned place, only inhabited by the left-behind characters, preserved in their anthropomorphic afterlife.

Sunnybrook Artcenter is an offsite art space in the rural area near Leipzig, GER.

http://www.sunnybrookartcenter.com/about/

SPIRITUALIZER; 2021; spirit, vegetables, glass jars, industrial equipment, litter

[tobikeck]

* Happy Birthday *

multimedia installation by tobi keck at artist run MIKKY BURG Dresden in september 2018.

[tobikeck]

“Fine Young Artists”

is a continuously growing collection of scalp-casts of contemporary visual artists. In fact it is representing an emerging new generation of artists, born in the 1980s and early 1990s.

The collection is currently holding the following artists:

Tobi Keck, Konrad Hanke, Lars Fischer, Julia Kiehlmann, Peter Fahr, Myriam Mayer, Inho Choi, Philipp Putzer, Nadja Kurz, Dominik Schäfer, Karl Kowalke, Carolin Richter, Euiyoung Hwang, Grit Aulitzky, Marten Schech, Rasmus Roos-Lindquist, Simon Mann, Gabriel von Bethlen, Lisa Wölfel, Ulrike Hild, Jonas Johnke, Melanie Börner, Andrea Barzaghi, Alexandre Karaivanov, Lilly Urbat, Nadine Baldow, Manaf Halbouni, Marco Stanke, Florian Birk, Sophie Altmann, Michael Ullrich, Carolin Trunk, Eva Schmidt, Katina Rank, Sascha Patzig, Jacob Friedländer, Max Stühlen, Moritz Liebig, Ruth Unger, Maria Kazimierczyk, Karin Armbruster, Eric Beier, Jan Kunze, Amanda Ziemele, Sten Gutglück, Theresa Tuffner, Johannes Listewnik, Johannes Bünemann, Hansol Kim, Mirjam Kroker, Robert Czolkoß, Lars Frohberg, Julia Langhammer, Thomas Schmelzer, Gala Goebel, Steve Braun, Alexander Endrullat, Jonas Lewek, Winnie Seifert, Birke Bonfert, Michael Eppler, Andi Fischer, Hannah Gottschalk, Theresa Rothe, Philipp Zörndlein, Florian Witt, Jasmin Schmidt, Liselotte Gammaschlag, Matthias Garff, Karoline Schneider, t.b.c.