The Miami-based collector and filmmaker Dennis Scholl is nothing if not eclectic in his tastes and activities. Scholl’s latest venture—as an artist—is an exhibition at Hua International gallery in Berlin (The Texture of My Memory, until 18 Match) which features “nearly 20 works created out of acquired cultural ephemera that are arranged into a dodecagon shape”, says a statement. These circular compositions are made from all sorts of fascinating paraphernalia such as the original royalty statements for songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney that date to 1971. “I found these ledger statements in a historical ephemera auction. Upon inspection, they had been torn in half and carefully retaped together so as to make the tears barely noticeable. It makes me wonder if someone fished them out of the trash! They are an incredible piece of musical history and when the amounts are considered they remind us of the long history of artists being under rewarded for their work,” Scholl says.
Another work is made from 12 vintage Hermès scarves while a set of love letters written by a bride to her Union captain (and husband to be) during the US civil war form the basis of another of the makeshift wall murals. So is this all about turning forgotten memories and memorabilia into art? “While the objects already have inherent value, I am trying to reassign a new value to them by considering and presenting them as artworks. This in turn conserves and resuscitates the archival material, but also reimagines its very form,” Scholl says.
