Measurement Uncertainties
2023
site-specific installation
& performance
One drop plus one drop makes a bigger drop, not two

Nostalgia,Tarkovsky.

As you walk through the exhibition Measurement Uncertaintiesby German artist Leon Billerbeck, you may find yourself passing through a temporary site of artefacts. The title of the exhibition reveals an ambivalent circumstance : while what is „out-side“ is internalized, the „in-side“ extends outwards and exposes itself. Derived from the scientific term to describe the margin of tolerance inherent in each calculation,Measurement Uncertainties indicate the difficulty and absurdity of trying to organize the natural elements with human-made tools.

In the present exhibition, the confrontation with nature is in fact presented as a paradoxical behaviour. The human need for order and sterility coexists with the desire for wildness and spirituality. The artist tries to provoke a discussion about the human tendency to repress and domesticate what is considered unpleasant; a tendency that results in a distanced relationship with our surroundings.

The harvesting of rain is one of the aspects highlighted in the exhibition. Inspired by his stay on an isolated island in Norway, Leon Billerbeck places this universal practice of engaging with nature in the local and spatial context of the gallery within the city of Porto. Seen all together, the works create a field of tension between the interior and exterior space, transforming the gallery into a threshold area: the roof of the gallery receives the rainwater, which is then brought inside.
A fabric, buried in the gallery backyard’s soil, connects to the exterior, like an umbilical cord, through the window. From these different points of contact emerges the impression of crossing a space without borders, where the limits inside / outside try to diffuse and where the rough and neat collide.

Through the use of both contemplative and worn, scarified photography as well as various objects ranging from the mass produced to the natural and raw, Billerbeck‘s work leads us through a space that invites us to reflect on the materiality and spirituality of the trivial.

Text by Audrey Schnell

The exhibition held at ARTES - MOTA GALIZA from 04.03.23 - 24.03.23 in Porto was developed during a three month Artist-In-Residency program at DELICEIRAS18, funded by the Câmera municipal do Porto.