The guiding principle of the postindustrial world is not the necessity to represent the representable, but rather the opposite principle.

(Jean-François Lyotard)

The exhibition marks a radical turning point in Marc C. Woehr’s body of work to date. While Woehr’s works have previously been shaped by geometric structures, urban rhythms, and an abstract visual language, he now makes a conscious shift toward works that elude the viewer’s immediate gaze.

The exhibition takes its cue from Jean-François Lyotard’s essay Presenting the Unpresentable, in which the philosopher poses the question of how art can make visible something that fundamentally escapes complete representation. For Lyotard, the task of contemporary art is no longer simply to depict the visible, but rather to point to the limits of the visible itself.

This idea manifests itself physically in Woehr’s new works. The otherwise clearly visible urban compositions are covered by a layer of wax. The material functions not only as a surface but as a deliberate barrier preventing the immediate reception and rapid consumption of the image. The works appear inaccessible, as if concealed. What becomes visible is not so much the motif as its absence.

The wax reliefs appear as a hint of an image, not as its final manifestation. The work no longer exists exclusively as a visible object, but as a possibility in the viewer’s consciousness. The work no longer exists solely as a visible object, but as a possibility within the viewer’s consciousness.

One of the works will be transformed during the opening reception. As the wax is heated, its transparency changes; the hidden structures emerge and then disappear again. The work thus exists in a constant state between concealing and revealing.

As Lyotard writes: “The guiding principle of the postindustrial world is not the necessity to represent the representable, but rather the opposite principle.”

It is precisely here that the relevance of Woehr’s artistic stance lies. In our fast-paced contemporary world in which images are consumed, replaced, and forgotten, the artist consciously reacts against this trend. With his works, he denies the viewer immediate legibility and instead creates space for projection, memory, and emotional experience.

Unpresentable is an exhibition about what an image might be when it refuses direct accessibility and about a new form of perception that emerges precisely in the invisible realm.